Our last unit study of the year turned out to be a great one! 

Using Art and Civilization: The Renaissance and The Usborne Book of World History as our main sources of information, we went on a quick journey through the Renaissance to prepare us for early modern history next year. 

Besides really important stops at the printing press, trade/exploration and Martin Luther, we chose to turn the main focus of the unit on famous Renaissance artists.  After watching this DVD, we spent one day studying each of the following artists and trying our hands at their art.  Some of our art ideas came from Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn Kohl.  (I LOVE this book!)

Almost all of our artist information came from the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artist Series by Mike Venezia.  My kids can't get enough of these books.  If I couldn't find a library book about the artist, we turned to the internet for research.  Here's a sampling of our projects.

Botticelli -art in the round

Michelangelo - "Sistene Chapel" art

Da Vinci - art from nature

Donatello - soap sculptures

Bruegel - landscapes

Tao-Chi - not your typical Renaissance artist, mind you.  But, an artist from China during the Renaissance time period.  I found this lesson on brush and ink paintings from Month-by-Month Masterpieces and couldn't pass it up! 

We also did a brief study of Shakespeare by reading A Child's Portrait of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare and the Globe, and Stage Fright on a Summer Night.  Our library had an entire series of Shakespeare DVD's, so we checked out Macbeth for a family flick night.  And for our listening pleasure in the car, we checked out Jim Weiss' Shakespeare For Children.

And so, that brings us to the end of another school year!  I have a box of Sensational Summer Sparks already started.  I'll share that with you soon!