With my oldest entering first grade, I have been looking for a good way to introduce art beyond cutting and pasting. A few weeks ago I was reading another blog that mentioned Home Art Studio, a DVD art curriculum for grades K-5. I started looking into it and was pleasantly surprised that the site even offers a free art lesson for each grade as a preview! I love when I can try things, especially curriculum, before I buy it.
The first grade program focuses on visual art from around the world, and the preview lesson teaches about Aboriginal dot painting from Australia. I decided to do that with my boys this week to see if they would enjoy it. I love that this curriculum introduces them to art from another culture and gives some information about its history.
First we watched the short video. We actually watched the video twice because when we first watched it last week, we unexpectedly ran out of time and didn’t get to try the painting ourselves. They watched it a second time this week. Then they went to work on making their own paintings in the Aboriginal style.
They definitely enjoyed this lesson! My only involvement with their paints was getting out the supplies. They took right to it and were careful to include the elements discussed in the video. I was definitely impressed by their enthusiasm.
I have a few other art programs I am looking at, and we will be trying the Kindergarten preview lesson next week, but this program is a good possibility for this Fall.
