Art/Famous Artists Lapbook

Well, this is another idea that I had in the middle of the night when I could not sleep! I hope it is a good one.

There are always so many things that I want to do with the kids but cannot find time for- art is one of them. Theoretically, I was going to do this with the kids over the summer, but the list of things to do over the summer seems to be growing fast! We will see how it works out. Anyway, I used these books that I picked up from the used book store titled Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists. Our library has corresponding DVDs to go with them.

The first section I made a color wheel, light, major artistic movements, and little matchbooks that each focus on a different mode of art. I used an Usborne art book- Children's Book of Art- for this information and Homeschoolshare for the templates.

In the following sections, I highlight a few of the famous artists that I want to focus on (Monet, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso, and Van Gogh). I made little books on the artist, their home country, and famous artwork. I also wanted a place were the kids could try to mimic the artwork itself and where they could do a bit of narration about the art.

Here are a few of the sites that were helpful:

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/artapp/collage.htm -Picasso

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/elemlessons.html- so many great ideas

http://pixilatedschoolnotes.blogspot.com/2007/09/learning-about-art-van-gogh.html - Van Gogh

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/occasions/vangogh.htm- Sunflower/Van Gogh

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/artapp/impressionism.htm - Monet

http://ebeth.typepad.com/serendipity/2008/07/a-is-for-art.html - Da Vinci

I think we may add to this once we get started because there is so much out there that we can use, but this is a good skeleton to start with.