Artistic Pursuits

When people tell me that they are afraid to homeschool, especially in the later years, because they don't think they have enough knowledge to do so, I always cringe a little inside. I figure as long as you graduated from high school you have the knowledge you need to at least go back and review the subjects enough to help your child along the way. even more importantly, our goal in homeschooling has always been to make learning a joint effort, one in which we gently guide Calvin's learning through reading and research, but not through lecturing. I'm helping, not teaching. 

Learning is a lifelong process, and if we reach a subject I can't help him with, I figure we'll just learn it together.

Take art, for example. I am not artistic or creative by nature. I can follow directions (Pinterest is grand) and think with ingenuity, and I can copy art fairly well, but ask me to sit down and sketch something on my own, or paint a scene, or tackle pretty much any artistic endeavor and you're out of luck. So while some parents fear teaching math or chemistry, my biggest fear has always been art.

Over the past few years I have tried several times to use Drawing with Children as a backbone for our work in the subject, and I loved the book—I really did—but the lack of clear lesson plans or directions left the non-artistic part of me floundering. So this semester we tried something new: ARTistic Pursuits, grades 4-5. With it's very clearly delineated and detailed lessons, this was a very big change, and not one that I'm entirely pleased with. While Drawing with Children always expected a lot of its readers, it did so with a level of trust that is lacking in ARTistic Pursuits, which suffers a bit from lessons that seem rather abbreviated and sometimes not very cohesive. So while I do appreciate the clear assignments and expectations, I think next fall we will return to Drawing with Children.