Art is one of the subjects that I feel the most unable and most unqualified to teach. This is for the simple reason I really don’t believe myself to be artsy. Although I do like crafting, I feel that the crafts that I like to do are too much for children. During the first few years, I would have my children do art activities that I remembered doing as a child. So we’ve done finger painting, drawing, coloring, paper weaving, leaf painting. After awhile, I started running out of ideas. I tried buying a book on crafting but the materials are also not easy to find. Eventually, art in our house whittled down to just me downloading coloring pages from the internet for my smaller ones to color or paint. My eldest has almost no art lessons at all. Now this really worried me because I haven’t even taught my children the primary and secondary colors! I want to but I needed to follow a curriculum. I dreamed of taking my children to see paintings and discussing it with them, but I was intimidated by that idea because I really don’t have any idea how to start it. So teaching my children Art has continued to remain a dream for me.
Then I received Spears Art Studio, Inc. K-8 Christian Art Curriculum, A Teacher’s Manual in CD format for review. At first, I felt very intimidated by it. Though it is in CD format, it consisted of hundreds of pages of art instruction. But after perusing it more slowly, I saw that it is actually a very organized presentation of how this art curriculum can be used for the levels K-8. She provides very detailed instructions on teaching art, using your materials wisely and how to evaluate a student’s artwork. The curriculum is divided into monthly themes according to seasons and events, with daily activities and divided further for each grade level. The daily activities are further explained in detail with color samples included. The best thing about this curriculum is that all of her art activities makes use of materials that are already normally found in your home.
K-8 Christian Art Curriculum, A Teacher’s Manual is created by Diane Shields Spears, Doctor of Christian Education. Here is their Mission Statement which I got from their website:
Spears Art Studio MISSION STATEMENT
1. to recognize the hand of God in everything and to give Him glory;
2. to reconnect the Lord as the Supreme Artist to the process and excitement of learning for both children and educators through the study and activity of art;
3. to provide resources for the Christian educator that:
a. help students make connections between the Creator, creativity, and personal maturity;
b. are organized for natural learning progression;
c. provide experiences for higher order thinking skills;
d. "stretch" academic and manipulative skills;
e. introduce students to famous artists and artworks incorporated into a seasonal and/or art elements/principles arrangement of art and craft production.
Or to put it simply, by using this art curriculum, you are able to teach art to your children from a Biblical world view.
So I am really glad to receive K-8 Christian Art Curriculum. The first time we used it, there was still some intimidation on my part, however, the details in the manual and the sample made it easy for me to explain to my children the activity.
I highly recommend this Art curriculum for purchase because you can use it teach your multiple-grade students together or use it to teach one student for many years, each theme has a verse to go along with it, you need not be an art major to teach your child with this curriculum. The price of US$ 39.95 for the CD is very reasonable because you can use just this one program for many years to come.
Please go to their website for Diane Spears’ free article “ART IS GOOD FOR MY BRAIN?”. While you’re there, you can check out and download free lessons for you to sample.
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