What We’re Doing for Homeschool Art (K, Gr. 3, Gr. 5)

Last year DD and LD did art class once a week at an art studio.  We decided we really needed to cut that out for now (because of the cost — although the teacher is absolutely brilliant and wonderful with the kids!).  This year we’ve got art scheduled in once a week (so that we actually carve out time for it).  We had our first art time yesterday (Thursday) — and luckily we homeschool because the kids worked for over 3 hours. In fact, I had to drag them kicking and screaming away from their work at almost 2pm to eat lunch!!

We’re using a number of resources for our art ‘class.’  

Books:

I found a really terrific book that I thought had some really good jumping out points. For example, we looked at this lesson about pattern birds and talked about the patterns in the black and white drawing.  We decided to trace our hands instead and went off to create our own hand projects.  When the kids asked if they could do something different, I said, “Of course! Of course!”

The reviews on Amazon weren’t terribly good, but I actually am really happy with this book. I’d say the lessons are geared more for the ages of my kids (elementary) than for 7th or 8th grade. You can buy it used from Amazon. It’s called Complete Art Curriculum Activities Kit. I like that it has suggestions for all kinds of different art projects–coil pottery, tile prints, construction projects… just all kinds of ideas that I’m familiar with, but need at my fingertips (in a book) to actually bring into our homeschool.

Another fun book we have on hand is called Draw Write Now. We have several from the series and the kids will draw and write from these books from time to time.  I noticed that our local library has this series, so you might want to check to see if your library it on hand.

Free Lessons Online:

We have used the website Art Projects for Kids for years and years! The kids have done lots and lots of lessons shared by Kathy on this wonderful website.  Yesterday, the kids pulled out a lot of her lessons and spent SO much time making their own drawings! You definitely need to bookmark her website!

We’ve also visited Deep Space Sparkle and Kids Artists from time to time and you can get great ideas from Pinterest like — Art for Kids from Great Blogs.

Purchased Art Curriculum:

Our friends have been using Meet the Masters.  I saw that Meet the Masters is offered at Homeschool Buyers Co-op for nearly 40% off and decided that with J’s enthusiastic recommendation that we would give it a try as well. (Besides, it’s cheaper than 1 month of art lessons in the studio — so it seems like a pretty good deal.)  By the way, if you wind up purchasing through the link above (or below) I get 500 smart points at the Co-op.  Just wanted to let you know… it costs you nothing, but it helps them promote their material, etc.

I opted for the Meet the Masters 3-pack (E-G) at Level 2. I figured that’d be the best option with the ages of my kids (5, almost 8 and 10)

Anyway, I’m still awaiting my order. We’ll hopefully start with that next week. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Materials we have on hand for art: The kids were SO excited when I brought out all of the materials. I thought others might be curious what materials we have on hand.

  • Oil pastels (Cray pas)
  • Soft Pastel Set (chalks) (Reeves)
  • Ebony pencils (for drawing)
  • Charcoal
  • Regular color pencils
  • Water Color Pencils (Reeves)
  • Water Color Crayons
  • Water color Paints
  • Acrylic Paint
  • Paper of various kinds

Have fun with art!!

2 Responses

  1. September 23, 2013

    […] wrote a post about our first day of art here.  The kids had a lot of fun — and I mentioned some of the resources we’ll be using […]

  2. September 23, 2013

    […] wrote a post about our first day of art here.  The kids had a lot of fun — and I mentioned some of the resources we’ll be using […]

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