Saturday, September 21

In the School Room: Week Three...


One of the books I have been using this school year is The Artful Parent.  I bought it on a whim and was happy to find that the purchase was worth it!  Though I think that we are pretty good about having the basic art materials out for our little ones to use when the mood strikes, I felt like I was in a rut.  We tended to use the same sorts of things (paper, glue sticks, pen, marker, watercolors, poster paints, yarn, chalk, crayons etc.).  The Artful Parent offers a lot of new ideas for art materials and activities, but is not "crafty."  Each activity is more like an exploration of different materials instead of a prescription for a specific and uniform project.  I love that!  I think the other great thing about this book is that there are many ideas and activities that use everyday items and art supplies that one can usually find right at home.  That makes things a lot easier!

My plan is to one of the art projects featured in the book (there are sixty) each week.  So far we have done Q-Tip Pointillism, painting with liquid watercolors (we had only ever used pan watercolors, so this was fun!), drawing on a line of taped down index cards, and bean collage. 

There are a ton of great ideas in this book and I am so excited to share them with my little ones (all of them love these activities - even the 3 year old!)!  Art this year is going to be a lot of fun!

P.S.  The author, Jean Van't Hul, also has a blog!


2 comments:

Lucy said...

Sounds interesting....

Unknown said...

Ok, you've sold me on it. I'm ordering it.

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