Consider the developmental needs of your students. For example, if you want to teach them the importance of building strong social skills, pair your students up into groups of two and assign each one a certain art activity. Walk around to each group and help them complete their activities, but still allow them to work independently among themselves.
Create activities that are fun but still developmentally appropriate. For example, if you want to promote students' use of their imagination, give them some sheets of construction paper and let them draw pictures of either things in the classroom, items in their homes or their parents and siblings.
Create activities that will encourage cooperation instead of competition among the students. If you have some age-appropriate jigsaw puzzles, take one and let all of the students participate in putting the puzzle together. Or if you have some pictures and a large posterboard, let the students create a classroom collage by pasting the pictures on the board.