Here’s a round up of my favorite art education resources – both for art appreciation and for building creativity skills! For my materials list, check out this post or grab my Amazon shopping list here.
Art Appreciation
- Gallery Scavenger Hunt – Julie Bogart of Bravewriter (my writing and homeschool guru!) suggests creating a scavenger hunt for kids while you tour art galleries or museums. Pick up postcards from the gift shop before you tour an exhibit and find a few pieces the kids will look for. We’ve done this several times and the kids love it! I have been able to find galleries online and, as I described in my How to Rock an Art Crawl with Kids post, we’ll look at my phone of the images before we go in to find a few pieces that we like and want to see in person. Read more art appreciation ideas from Julie here.
- Read Aloud / Morning Basket – one of the books I include in my morning basket is a 20th century Art Book or something similar like the Pantone: 20th Century in Color. We will pick a color and look for it throughout the book, talking about the pieces we like or what we notice. Or, we’ll pick a medium and search for pieces like sculptures or collage based on the creativity skill we’ve been working on.
- I Spy – The kids loved pouring through the Can You Find It? books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art! I chose the America version to pair with our trip around the states.
Creativity Skill Building
Books on how to teach skills:
- Let Out the Sunshine by Regina Reynolds Barnett – Montessori based lessons for 2-6 year olds to develop construction activities: separating, joining, modeling, sculpturing and communication activities: drawing and painting
- The Art of Teaching Art to Children by Nancy Beal – a fantastic look at inviting children to create and how to talk to them about their work. For 5 years old and up, focusing on collage, drawing, painting, clay, printmaking, construction, and social studies.
Step-by-step drawing practice
- Kids Art Hub How To drawing with an incredibly positive dad and his kid(s). Nore before starting – they use sharpies!
- Ed Emberly How To Draw books. I had Ed Emberly books (the thumbprint one!) when I was young and love the step by step approach. My kids found success in this approach after age 6.
History and Artist-inspired projects
Art History Kids I love the projects offered by Art History Kids. They are artist or movement based and include open-ended, no prep projects. My kids loved the Monet haystacks project – we looked at boulders in Lassen Volcanic Park at three points throughout the day to see how the shadows and light changed on them!
Finally, if you’re looking for actual scripted lessons, here are two great and free resources:
Park City Elementary Visual Arts
National Park Educator Resources – the National Park Service has some great lesson plans available, so you can pair your art study with your trip destination!
Those are my favorite art education resources – what are yours?
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