January Homeschool Art

We have finally found a way to squeeze art into our regular school week. Ben, Maddie, and Jon have gotten pretty good at getting their busy-work (math and handwriting practice) done on Tuesdays at Bible study. They usually like working a bit ahead on history and reading ("Just one more page, please, Mama!"), and I am the one who usually says, "Let's stop here for science." We are usually ahead a bit of where I thought we would be, so we are squeezing school into the first four days of the week and using Fridays to make up anything we didn't get to. We still have several hours on Friday for art, and I'm trying to make it correspond to something we are studying.

We learned about stained glass art in western Europe, then the kids make their own crayon and waxed-paper versions. Jon's is on top with lots of yellow (the blue ovals "represent a hibernating bear," Ben's is next, and Maddie's has the rainbow.

 We learned about Polish paper-cutting, spent the morning looking at traditional patterns, then I helped them cut their own Polish-style paper art. Jon's has foxes, Ben's is an eagle, Maddie's is a snowflake.

Another week, we learned about Russian mosaics and made paper matroyska dolls in a similar style. Ben was making a bear, Jon made a parrot, and Maddie made a girl with a hooded shawl and apron.

I've enjoyed finding ways to take what we are learning about in geography and history and tying it into the art projects. I'm also excited to finishing up two weeks learning about Eastern Europe and Russia just as the Winter Olympics are beginning in Sochi! Some of our upcoming projects will take more than one Friday to complete, but I'm glad that the kids are excited enough about the arts and crafts to work hard on the other days to make sure there is time on Fridays.