“This book gives students their first in-depth look at the elements of art in a simply written text with lots of illustrations in pencil, marker, and scratch art, the media they will be using. The elements of art and composition are explored through American art.”
Tink and I got the chance to check out Grades 4-6Book 1, The Elements of Art and Composition.
This book is very well laid out. The contents page tells you what’s in each lesson and gives you a complete list of supplies, including pictures of the supplies so you can see what you’re looking for in case you want to pick them up at your local art store. There are a few other options to buying your art supplies as well. You can order art supply packsdirectly from the Artistic Pursuits web site in which case you get a tote bag to carry your supplies in, or you can follow the links from their site to other suppliers.
The manual gives parents a brief introduction and lets us know what to expect, outlining what’s covered in each unit: vocabulary, American art appreciation and history, Techniques, and Application. Then another brief introduction for the student. From this point, the student can take over, learning the basics for themselves.
I really like this idea. Tink is finally starting to learn independently so I’ll take any help in this area I can get. ;) She did need a small amount of hand-holding through the first lesson, but pretty soon, she was working completely on her own through the rest of the lessons.
We both enjoyed this curriculum. Plenty of encouragement was given to the student to try new things. I think that helped Tink a lot. She seemed proud of herself as she showed me her finished drawings and said she liked that each lesson had an exercise for her to sketch. The lessons were very easy for her to follow, and written very clearly.
You can see sample pages from both books 1 and 2 here.
Artistic Pursuits offers fabulous curricula to homeschoolers. It was a blessing to have been chosen to review it. I’m going to have to put more of these books on my wish list for the rest of the kiddos.
This is my family's journey through homeschooling, using My Father's World curriculum. We spent the majority of last school year reviewing curriculum for TOS Homeschool Crew so that's why many of my blog entries are product reviews. We're now back on track and diving into MFW once again.
My children are
Ninja- 15: teenage black belt extrordinaire. Using MFW's Ancient History and LIterature;
Tink- 11: sweet girl schooling with ADHD symptoms and dysgraphia (?). Using MFW's Exploring Countries and Cultures;
The Dude-5: handsome little man with language delays/probably on the autism spectrum. He's no longer in preschool for speech therapy and special ed. Now using MFW K; and
Baby Princess- 18 months: beautiful busy baby girl, possibly on the autism spectrum as well. Tagging along with The Dude and whatever else I think might interest her.
