Artistic Pursuits K-3 Book 1: An Introduction to Visual Arts

Retail $42.95

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Artistic Pursuits Website

Artistic Pursuits offers multi level art books from Preschool through High School.  We are reviewing Artistic Pursuits K-3 Book 1. There are a total of 32 lessons, each with three different components. What Artists Do: (Ten lessons) Children explore drawing and painting techniques, gaining experience in pencil, color, and brush work. What Artists See: (Seven lessons) Children explore collage, paper works, and color mixing. Children gain experience in handling scissors, glue, and paper forms. Exploring Ancient Art: (Fifteen lessons) Children see that art is more than just a picture on a wall. Children explore mural, pottery, low-relief, paper art, bookbinding, mosaic techniques and more.

Lessons are simple, pull off the shelf and go. Materials are minimal and easy to find. (no running around searching for obscure items) Projects coordinate with History lessons quite easily. You can jump around to any lesson to fit what you’re working on

None. Love it.

We LOVE Art.

Have you noticed.

We do TONS of hands on learning around here,
coordinating our projects with our daily lessons.

But sometimes I forget to schedule actual ART.

It’s one of those subjects that is on the last of the daily schedule,
and because of that;sometimes often gets overlooked.

And there are different reasons why Art gets the cold shoulder over here.
Some days it’s just not convienent to plan an art project.
Some days are so hectic that it’s just not possible,
And there are even some days where there is plenty of time,
but a certain teacher is lacking the energy to plan one.

Ahem.

Well this month we were blessed to review a wonderful Art curriculum called Artistic Pursuits.
And I’m happy to report that we’ve been doing a lesson every week!

If you’re not already familiar with Artistic Pursuits, you can read all about their program here. One of the main aspects to their curriculum is that they employ different REAL-LIFE techniques for teaching art.
Instead of adhering to a strict technique, step-by-step, or drawing different lines in boxes sort of thing, Artistic Pursuits focuses on building upon skills of an individual child while introducing a variety of different aspects to art. Here is a neat little visual representation from their website:

These topics are covered throughout their curriculum, spanning from Preschool to Highschool grade levels. For each of the different levels of Artistic Pursuits, you can see the topics covered, so it’s very easy to choose just the right book for your children.

After reading about the Art History topics, I chose K-3 Book 1

 
Artistic Pursuits K-3 Book 1: An Introduction to Visual Arts

Retail $42.95
Here is what is covered in Artistic Pursuits K-3 Book 1:
What Artists Do: Ten lessons cover activities artists engag

e in when making art such as imagining and observing. Children explore drawing and painting techniques, gaining experience in pencil, color, and brush work.
What Artists See: Seven lessons cover the elements that artists use in 2-dimesional and 3-dimensional works such as shape, form, and color. Children explore collage, paper works, and color mixing. Children gain experience in handling scissors, glue, and paper forms.
Exploring Ancient Art: Fifteen lessons cover ancient art from the cave paintings of France to book illumination of the 13th century. Children see that art is more than just a picture on a wall. Cultures used it in different ways and for different purposes. Lessons expand the child’s ideas of what art is and where we find it. Children explore mural, pottery, low-relief, paper art, bookbinding, mosaic techniques and more.
There are a total of 32 lessons, each with three different components.
The lessons are set up in such as way that it makes it really easy to just pull off the shelf and start teaching.

Second Page: Children study and learn about historical pieces
(here we see an example of Bas-relief on an Assyrian city from 859 BC)

Third Page: Children creat their own projects using the techniques learned
(time to make our own Bas-relief from clay….I love that there are visuals to show the children!)

Success!

After reading and discussing the three lesson pages together,
we get right to work on our projects!

With each book you’re given a supply list, which you can easily put together yourself
or if you’re super-busy you can even order these Art Supply Kits from Artistic Pursuits.

I chose to simply rummage through our craft supply closet,
and then picked up the additional supplies at the craft store.

TIP: I’m storing alot of my supplies in a rubbermaid NEAR my classroom,
so we can just grab and go. I’ve found this to make Art time run a bit smoother.

Pros:
Lessons are simple, pull off the shelf and go.
Materials are minimal and easy to find. (no running around searching for obscure items)
Projects coordinate with History lessons quite easily.
You can jump around to any lesson to fit what you’re working on

Cons:
None. Love it.

Disclaimer: As part of the TOS Homeschool Crew I was sent a free copy of this product for review purposes. All opinions are my honest reflections on the product itself. You can read what other Crew members thought of Artistic Pursuits here.

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