Art with Anything by MaryAnn F. Kohl

If you know anything about our family, you know we have a budding artist for a 7 year old, so finding a good art resource for home school was very important to me. At the same time, I wanted something that my two boys (7,4) could do together. I found MaryAnn F. Kohl on www.amazon.com, and could've purchased any of her titles (such as Discovering Great Artists: Hands-on Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters or Story Book Art: Hands-on Art for Children in the Styles of 100 Great Picture Book Artists), but settled on Art with Anything: 52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff (Gryphon House, Inc., 2010), which is aimed at ages 4-10, a great age range for homeschooling families.  First off, let me say that this contains more art projects that I would ever care to do - 5 a week for 52 weeks, so there are plenty to choose from. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the format of the book.

Each week uses an art medium that you probably have around the house, or given a month or two, could save up. Some examples are: Address Labels, Aluminum Foil, Berry Baskets, Buttons, Coffee Filters, Hole-Punch Dots (NO THANK YOU), Gift Wrap, Leaves, Lids, Rain, Socks, Toys, Yarn, Zip-close bags. Each week's contents starts with a list of what you will need for each day, followed by simple directions for each week's project. The projects advance from basic to more complex as the week goes on, sometimes using pieces from one day for another day's project.

Not being particularly adventurous (but I'm working on it), I decided to start at the first week which was Address Labels. The projects are Label Collage, Painted Label Art, Woven Look Painting, Label Puzzle Craft, and Fancy Spaced-Out Labels (p. 12-13). Today, on the first day of homeschooling, my boys and I completed the Label Collage craft. Each person received a sheet of blank address labels to color (We used watercolor paints and markers.). When we were all finished, we shared our labels, and pulled them off the sheets to make collages on construction paper.  Simple, but the process took at least 30 minutes, and my artist 7 year old declared, "This was fun!" at the end of art time! I cannot wait to do more of MaryAnn's art projects. 

Above you can see Will's (4), Alex's (7), and my art projects from today.