Horn Homeschool: Week 4

Continuing with the "A" themes, week 4 of our homeschooling venture (can we really be through four weeks already?!?) was all about ART.

And man, was it fun!

I've decided to nix my weekly practice of listing our homeschooling activities because 1) I realize none of you really care to read all the details, 2) I do NOT want to give my inner-braggart voice by tauting all that we're doing. And believe me, my inner-braggart has a LOUD voice! and 3) It takes a LONG time to post all the nitty-gritty details. That's time that I would rather spend baking granola or taking a shower.

Instead I'll offer up a weekly highlight post showcasing our fave activities and resources.

So without further adieu let me tell you about some stellar kid art resources. I highly highly HIGHLY recommend these resources for teaching art to youngsters.


Art Resources

• Katie series by James Mayhew. I'm evolving more and more into a Charlotte Mason follower. As such I find that using books to teach unfamiliar subjects works very well for little minds. My kids swallow up new information if it's presented well in picture book form. Such is the case with the Katie books. We read both Katie Meets the Impressionists and Katie and the Mona Lisa this week. Both Chloe and Clive were hooked on these and asked for them again and again! These books don't cram facts about art down your throat. The books more gently present art work and subjects of art in a relate-able way. And they're fun reads to boot!
• Classical Baby: The Art Show dvd by HBO. This dvd was incredible. It was entertaining, enriching, and educational (like my spontaneous "e" alliteration?) on many levels. The gist of the flick is this -- a cartoon baby conducts appropriate classical music with animated paintings. So the watcher is making visual AND auditory connections. For example, an action painting by Jackson Pollock is paired with The Flight of the Bumblebee music. Paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Cassatt, Pollock, Mondrian, and others are featured as well as various famous sculptures. The kids asked to watch this EVERY DAY last week. And I let them because they got SO much good stuff into their brains. How many 2.6 year olds do you know can identify Monet's Waterlilies or Rodan's The Thinker? My Clive can thanks to classical baby.
• The Usbourne Art Treasury. I'm learning that Usbourne=Awesome. This book is no exception. The book introduces not only famous paintings but also explains in kidspeak identifying techniques of various artists. AND the goes one step further. After each two page spread of explanation and visuals, a simple project is given to imitate the artist's technique. We only did the Van Gogh project but there were many others that looked promising.
• How Artists See series by Colleen Carroll. We read the How Artists See People book in this captivating series but there are a plethora of other titles. The book clearly compared and contrasted various paintings of children, men and women by posing simple questions to lead in observational discovery. I was genuinely surprised at the kids' attention span for this simple book. They easily made it through the entire thing (Clive not so much as Chloe) and eagerly answered the questions.
• A Book About Color: A Clear and Simple Guide for Young Artists by Mark Gonyea. Excellent book. I stumbled upon this beauty in the non-fiction stacks and it's cover tempted me to pick it up. I'm so glad I did! A simple and eye-catching read, this block-image book teaches lots of color principles using easy images and familiar references. Through this book, Chloe easily picked up several color concepts and vocabulary words (i.e. primary and secondary colors, complementary colors, saturation, and color wheel).
  

Week 4 Highlights

Outdoor painting with cardboard palettes









































Action painting (aka Jackson Pollock style)





































Painting with thick paint ala Van Gogh





















Field trip to the Cleveland Art Museum (this place ROCKS! And admission is FREE. We truly are fortunate to live near such a high-class joint. It houses several Van Goghs, Monet's classic Water Lilies, a miniature demo version of The Thinker, and a Jackson Pollock. Not to mention works by El Greco, Renoir, Mondrian, Degas, Picasso and many others. Did you know you aren't allowed to take even non-flash photos at the museum? Found that out the hard way.)





















Sculpting with clay (Spent two afternoons working with oven-bakeable clay. Chloe made several little things the first day and then the second day she crafted a crown [pictured below] and the letters of her name. I made Bob the Builder. Sculpting sure is harder than it looks!)