Posted in Artist and Composer Studies

I have been talking to several people about this recently and decided I should put this on my blog...because it is one of my favorite things we are doing this year! I also want to add links for you, because I have gotten some great resources on this subject. Once again, I got this wonderful idea (that I'm about to share) from the blog, Higher Up and Further In...if you haven't checked it out by now, you should!

A few months ago, I chose maybe 6 artists that I wanted to cover with the girls this year. We are doing 1 artist every 6-8 weeks...no schedule set in stone, it's flexible and simple, just the way I like it! For every artist I chose, I picked 6 of their paintings that we would look at. I chose the paintings from this site:

http://cgfa.dotsrc.org/fineart.htm

This is a wonderful site where you can look up the artist according to their last name, alphabetical order, and view a lot of their famous pieces. So, I chose 6 pieces per artist from this site.

Then, I saved them all onto my computer in my pictures file. And, finally, I had them all printed off at walgreens that very night on 4x6's. (gotta love technology today!)

I bought the girls each a little album just for their pictures, just the little albums that hold 4x6's with a few little lines for a description.

Each week I give them a new picture to add to their album. Hannah has been writing the artist and the title of the painting beside each one. Each week we discuss the painting and review past week's paintings. I ask who painted it, what they like about it, sometimes at random times I will ask them about a painting. Do you remember this one? What does it look like? What is your favorite painting?

At this stage in the game we are going for EXPOSURE...plain and simple! My girls are learning some artists names, seeing their style, learning what they like and dislike and it could not be more simple on my part to plan and execute!

I also at some point during those 2 months with 1 artist check out a few kid friendly books from the library on that artist, so we learn a little bit more about his/her life.

Finally, I print off their picture from this site, and we add it to our timeline:

http://www.montessorimaterials.org/art/artists.pdf

This site is really a wonderful resource, because they are just the right size for most timelines! I cut it out and paste it on an index card and VOILA, there you have it!

So far we have learned about Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas...and I am learning just as much as they are! I love it!