Summer Lessons -- One Idea

I sat down and talked with my two oldest to get some rough structure ideas for the summer. We settled on having a library day (Mondays look good for this and help start the week out with new reading material), some pool time, some cleaning time (my idea, of course), some sustained silent reading, and some art time.

Art time?

I had to do a little searching because while Bookivore loves Art, she hates Crafts. So I was looking for something that fell more under Art and less under Cut-Paste-and-Glitter. What I found was a gem of a site that offered me projects based on actual artists (you know -- people who get paid to make art)or on artistic principles.

Woot Woot!

It's called -- appropriately -- Art Projects for Kids, and I love that all the projects have been classroom tested. Some projects need a template, which may only be available for a small fee, but most are free. FREEEEEEE!

Another nice feature is that the projects mostly require stuff you're likely to have at home or can get easily at a local craft store -- paint, oil pastels, chalk. One or two require fancy art stuff like gesso, but there's enough there that you can just skip those and find something else to do. We're going to focus mainly on drawing and painting. As a bonus, some projects upcycle old CDs and CD cases or old magazines.

To make this relevant to the books we're reading, I may adapt some of the projects to include objects or places we're reading about. Or I might just have them write about their art -- the perfect double bonus.

Summer starts in T-minus 3 days and counting!