We believe that visual arts are an important part of an education and we add an art component to just about every topic. So, even when we study about carbon, we pull out the oil pastels! We love to experiment with different media, too, and have used chalk pastels, water color pastels, termpura paint, paper shapes, dried flowers, clay, charcoal pencils, colored pencils, water colors and paper ‘sculptures’.

Homeschool art on display!

Last homeschool year, we invited family and friends to an art exhibit in which we displayed all of the wonderful art our homeschooler created over the year. We had history-based art, math-based art, science-based art, and favorite subjects such as dinosaur art. We matted some pieces on colored construction paper and used cellophane tape to gently affix the pictures to the walls at kid-eye level. We displayed three dimensional objects on short tables.

Our homeschooler wouldn’t sell any of his art, but he learned that “his art had value to others”.

The best part was that we used the exhibit as a year-in-review tool by keeping the art on display for the entire month. Every day, we chose a few pieces to discuss. We imagined life as a dinosaur, wondered how to “land a space craft on the gassy planet, Jupiter”, remembered the fun we had at the local plant festival and reminisced about the adventure we had when we took our art supplies outdoors. What a fun way to enhance learning and review past lessons!