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Ximena Rice's 4-year-old daughter, Ally, appears to have artistic genes flowing through her.

When it is too cold to be outside, Ally loves to paint using watercolors or finger paints, as well as create photo albums.

"She's very creative. She amazes me all the time," Rice says of Ally.

Rice, 38, of New Market, is a mother of two who also develops and designs web pages.

During cold months when long hours indoors can make days seem endless, spending time nurturing a child's interests in art can add some color to an otherwise dull day.

To make photo albums, Rice and her daughter spend time together looking through photographs of family and friends and talking about different events that were special to them. Ally then selects several pictures to place in a small album. When a particular person or event is missing, she draws and colors a picture about it to make her album complete.

"[In the album] it ends up being her favorite things — the special people in her family and animals," Rice says, adding that Ally becomes attached to each new album she makes, often carrying it around with her everywhere she goes for a week or more before storing it with others on a bookshelf.

Gwen Drescher, curriculum specialist for elementary visual and performing arts at Frederick County Public Schools, encourages photography as an art activity for young children. She believes photography enhances people's lives in many different ways and allows parents an opportunity to "discuss time and events from the past."

As an indoor activity on a cold day, give children a digital or disposal camera and let them take "still-life photos," Drescher suggests. She says providing a theme to help guide children, such as taking pictures of everyone's feet and toes in the house or only green things or items that begin with a particular letter, is helpful. The photographs can then be looked at and talked about on the computer or printed out to sort and place in an album or collage.

Drescher also suggests creating a portfolio of self-portraits by having children draw themselves each winter and then saving them in a folder or special book. Through the years, parents and children can look back at the drawings and talk about how they have evolved.

"It's meaningful as well as fun," Drescher says, adding that parents can make the activity age-appropriate by changing the medium from crayons, to markers, to paints, as well as having an older child make an abstract self-portrait.

Creating an "art bag" encourages three-dimensional art, Drescher says. When it is warm enough to be outside, allow children to collect things they see and are curious about, such as pinecones, colorful stones or nuts. Keep them in a bag in the house labeled "art bag." On a cold day when everyone is trapped inside, children can make sculptures out of the things in the bag with glue. Drescher said that a good follow up idea is to make it the centerpiece on the kitchen table at dinnertime and have the child talk about how and why he or she created this particular piece of art.

Melanie Gettier, 41, of Frederick likes the idea of projects in which children can work with different textures.

"Kids like tactile things," says the mother of two.

One of her kids' favorite projects is working with "goop," a mixture of cornstarch, water, and food coloring that she pours onto cookie sheets. It's looser than play dough, and Gettier says children like just running their hands through it because it feels different. She says her children have fun pouring or spooning it into different containers, pretending to cook.

Drescher says when it comes to planning art projects, it is good to always relate activities to other content areas. For example, she suggests when little ones are working with play dough or clay, encourage them to make shapes and then create patterns (circle, star, circle) to incorporate math skills.

Drescher also says parents should not to forget about the performing arts when it comes to activity time inside. One of her favorite projects is lining up glasses on a table and filling them with different levels of water. She then lets children tap on the glasses with spoons, talking about how different levels of water make different musical notes. Add food coloring to the water and mix colors to create a science element.

Another idea is to play different songs that vary in speed and volume and have children dance slowly or quickly to the beat or sing softly or loudly to the words.

"High and low, soft and loud, fast and slow are early differences children are learning," Drescher says.

She also says it is fun to make instruments to add to the music. Things around the house, such as a turned over bucket for a drum or dried beans in a bottle for a shaker, can be used as makeshift instruments. Drescher says teaching very little ones to use these instruments will help them to get the beat.

Drescher says when it comes to planning art projects at home, it is best to "think about experimenting" so that a child can develop new skills.

"A lot of what we do with art and music is begin to explore, [then] move to discovery, and [then] begin to apply these skills," she says.

Gettier says she's learned this through the play of her 4-year-old son, Jonas. He likes to paint pictures because of the colors and designs he can make, but most of all, "because the paint splatters," she said.

Gwen Drescher, curriculum specialist for elementary visual and performing arts for Frederick County Public Schools, suggests pulling up museum Web sites online for kid-friendly activities or to simply look at and enjoy the art. Try out these other suggestions from Frederick-area parents:

-Put a twist on painting by doing it in the bathtub. A quick search online for "bathtub finger paints" provides several recipes to make homemade paint a child can use with their fingers or brushes in the tub.

-Cook! Get children involved in the whole process by looking at cookbooks together and deciding on what to make. Go to Martha Stewart's Web site for kids (www.marthastewart.com/ kids) to see cooking and other ideas.

-Camp inside by decorating large furniture boxes to create a "tent city." Then enjoy a picnic lunch on a tablecloth spread out on the floor.

-Buy "Porta Pottery" from I Made This! (www.geocities.com/ imadethispottery), a studio in downtown Frederick, where you can select a piece of pottery and paints to take home to design on a cold day. Return the piece to the store to have it fired in a kiln and pick it up about one week later.