Teaching Art At Home







when my kids were much smaller

we used to do arts and crafts a lot



painting pictures

making paper crowns

cutting out shapes

crafting face masks



our floors were once glazed with glitter and glue



but as the kids got older

and our classes became more challenging and time consuming



art class

fell by the wayside



occasionally

i would teach an art class

or art history course at our coop



but at home

our paints dried out from lack of use




this week

as i was doing the final honing and planning

of our school year

i decided to bring a little creative expression back into our house



in the form of

Art Class



i cleaned out our art box

stocked up on some new brushes

paints

and pastels from Walmart



and pulled out my two main art books:






my hope is to do a mix of both books

choosing projects that we like from Geography Through Art

and alternating with studying

one artist a month



my approach

is to teach a little history pertaining to that artist

and his or her most famous works



and then having my kids create their own version

of one or two of the pieces



in addition to the books we have

i find as many free online resources

as possible



my favorite free resource site

(and not just for art)

is Garden Of Praise



where you can find printables

and lesson ideas for Art Appreciation



you'll find artist biographies

samples of paintings

coloring pages

quizzes

and lots more goodies



for September

we'll be making maps for geography class

but we're also going to study Georgia O'Keefe



in addition to the material on Garden of Praise

i found this free lesson on O'Keefe

that we'll also use



i also want to

visit a couple of local art galleries and museums this year



i'll admit

that two of my kids

will have zero interest in doing art this year

and that's okay



i won't force it



art is really

supposed to be fun



so we'll keep our projects relaxed

without pushing to get through

as much as possible



hopefully

my kids will be inspired to be more creative

and appreciative of art this year



if you'd like to see more Homeschooling ideas

you can follow my Homeschooling Board on Pinterest




and to see what our curriculum choices are

for the coming school year

click here







{alison}