Homeschool Adventures: Art Time

Last month I had an epiphany. While I’m not a teacher by degree, I tend to think that I know some great things for my children to learn. And if I don’t know it, then there are books and blogs, and teachers who will actually give me tips on things. Pairing that with the fact that I am not an artist, you can imagine how art class goes during our homeschool sessions. No matter what you may think, I’m pretty darn proud of the three artists. 

 

It took everything within me to let them just go for broke. I’m all about not mixing colors because that’s just me. Or, I will mix colors in a separate well, instead of just creating six wells of black. Sir Twizzler is all about that mix all the colors life, and seeing him gleefully paint all over a piece of paper is well worth it. See what I’m talking about? 

 

Another great resource that I have a book called The Artful Parent by Jean Van’T Hul. I picked it up during my Type A Parent Conference trip last year, when they had their open market for any bloggers that wanted to participate. I loved that the book revolved around simple things that any parent could do with their child(ren) and you didn’t need to have a masters in the art sciences to do so. This particular afternoon of painting wasn’t anything that I’ve gleaned from these pages, but there are TONS of great ideas, and they don’t just happen indoors. 

 

Back to the art class that we had. I was able to keep some of the messiness at bay with art trays that I picked up from my local Lakeshore Learning, and boy am I happy. I no longer have to tape newspaper to my kitchen table (although I do feel like we’ll end up doing it sometime soon-ish) and each of the littles has their own area to work in. No more fighting over paint areas, no more fighting over brushes, paint trays or anything else like that. Nothing but barely chubby hands and knuckles working the paint brushes over the paper in ways only their imaginations can do. At this point Lil’ Miss was explaining what she was creating. It was intense. 

 

 

One of the things that I really like about the ladybug’s picture below is the fact that the sun is round, yellow, and has rays coming from all areas of it. This is something that lets me know that children aren’t taught this phenomenon, well at least mine weren’t. Those suns, and the people with big bulbous bodies and arms and legs sticking out of them. I smile so hard! I know, I should be smiling because they are my children, but, seriously, it just takes me back to art class with my teacher, Mr. Jana. So many days of all sorts of paints and whatnot to play with. 

 

 

Are any of you lovers of art? What are you working on with your children, whether homeschooled or not. Share it with me! Hopefully, we’ll have more projects to share with you in the future!