Mercie and Silas recently had the opportunity to review the ARTistic Pursuits Inc. Early Elementary Book One for grades K-3. Mercie {2nd grade} and Silas {Kindergarten} have never had any formal art instruction, so I was very excited to use this book with them!
WHAT IS ARTISTIC PURSUITS?
- Early Elementary {grades K-3}
- Elementary {grades 4-5}
- Middle School {grades 6-8}
- High School {grades 9-12}
- Sculpture
What Artists Do: This first section talks about how to use different materials, such as watercolor crayons, pastels and pencils, and the variety of subjects an artist works from, such as landscapes, people and still life. There are 14 lessons in this first section.
What Artists See: This section discusses the different elements of art - two and three dimensional work like shape, form, lines, and colors. There are 7 lessons in this section that give your child the opportunity to work with paper, color mixing, drawing, cutting, gluing, and folding.
Where We Find Art: This last section of the book talks about where art is found, like caves cathedrals. Fifteen lessons in this section cover pottery, clay modeling, bookbinding, and mosaics.
Each lesson is 2-3 pages long. The first part of the lesson is the introduction. You will present this information to your child by reading the lesson and discussing it. There is also a famous work of art for your child to look at and observe. There are questions to springboard your child's creativity and observation skills. Finally, there is a project for your child to complete. Each project page has instructions, a list of the materials, a real example of a child's work and visual instructions.
In this book, there are 4 "Material Groups". The groups are "Group #1 Drawing", "Group #2 Painting", "Group #3 Paper Art" and "Group #4 Clay". There is a list of supplies for each "Material Group". Most of the supplies are inexpensive, but some are not. The watercolor crayons, for example, were nearly $40 on Amazon. I purchased them for $24.99 on Amazon when I found them for a better price. {I checked Amazon daily for a week.} It is worth the price, though, because I purchased a cheaper set of watercolor crayons, and they were all broken the same day.
WHAT DO WE THINK OF ARTISTIC PURSUITS?
We used several lessons for this review period, but I am going to save the rest for when we start our new school year in July. I plan to purchase the supplies for all 4 Material Groups, place them each in a plastic shoe-box, and label them Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 and Group 4. This will make it much easier for me to glance at the lesson and grab the correct box!
Mercie and Silas have enjoyed working through the lessons in this book. They are truly engaged when I present the lesson and fully participate in observing the beautiful painting and artwork in the book. They loved answering questions about the art and even making their own observations!
Their favorite part of this program is, of course, the projects! This was our first experience with watercolor crayons, and the kids had a blast working with them! They were pleasantly surprised with the end results of their own artwork.
{Silas - age 5}
{Mercie - age 8}
{Mercie - age 8}
I am very impressed with ARTistic Pursuits Inc, and I highly recommend this art curriculum for any family looking to add art to their homeschool days! At $47.95, it's a great deal for an entire year of art lessons! It's a beautiful book, printed on heavy paper, one-sided only {which, for some reason, I loved}. The colors are bright and don't leave out any details of the artwork in the book. My children loved looking at the real-life examples of children's artwork, which include their names and ages.
Check out ARTistic Pursuits on Facebook!
That sound wonderful!
ReplyDelete