Half a Hundred Acre Wood

Christian homeschooling integrating Classical and Charlotte Mason principles

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Art study is one of those things that often gets shoved to the side in our home. Every semester I set out to do better in my follow-through with our art study plans, only to later find the semester wrapping up with our family having completed only a fraction of what I had intended. (Anyone else out there with this problem? Just me?)

This semester, we took a slight detour in our regular art study plans to experiment with a different form of art appreciation, the Artist Hands-On History Activity-Pak by Homeschool in the Woods.

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And while it didn’t magically eliminate my drop-the-ball-on-art tendencies, it did provide some structure for art study this semester.

What is the Artists Activity Pak?

The Artists Activity Pak is a downloadable study consisting of lapbook activities, art project ideas (to imitate the styles and mediums of the masters), and a file folder game. It approaches the study of art through art history and the various art movements, such as Baroque, Renaissance, Impressionist, Modern, and Americana.

Let’s take a look first at the lapbook components. (For those who don’t know much about lapbook projects, they are simply cut-and-paste activities that are compiled together into a file folder.)

The lapbook projects for this activity pak include Paint Box Vocabulary (where we defined art vocabulary terms)…

…art movements and the various forms of media used by master artists…

… and an Artist Exhibition with 33 different Master Artists.

As you can see in the above photo, we’re still working on completing the details for our Artist Exhibition (which will likely take us a few years). But as we study each artist in future semesters, we can come back and fill in the details. An artist exhibition piece is included for the following artists:

Art project ideas are provided for ten of the thirty-three artists, and a few of the art exhibition pieces require a search online to find images of artwork (for the artists whose works are not in the public domain). A bio about each artist is not provided in the activity pak, so it is mainly just a place to record information about each artist as we come across them in our external studies. (I’d love for the activity pak to include a short bio for each artist or a list of links or books to reference to find out more.)

So let’s finish opening up the lapbook:

The activity pak also includes an Art Sketchbook with over 20 quotes from various artists for journaling through art study, as well as “Paint Like the Masters!” art project instructions for 10 different artists: Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Sesshu, Van Gogh, Seurat, Matisse, Picasso, Audubon, and Grandma Moses.

Our favorite part of this activity pak has been the Art Gallery File Folder Game.

The game includes 60 cards with images of famous paintings (by 18 different artists), along with the name of the work, artist, medium, and year. As players travel around the game board, they can read information about the artists on the gameboard and answer questions about the artwork on the cards. It’s a great, non-competitive game that allows your family to take a virtual “tour” through an art gallery and provides an opportunity to learn and recognize the styles of each artist. This game is available as a separate purchase here. You can also find other games and activities on the alacarte page.

The activity pak comes with step-by-step printing and assembly instructions for each project and the lapbook. It’s recommended for grades 3-8 and is available on CD-ROM or digital download.

Homeschool in the Woods offers samplers of their history studies, timeline figures, and maps. Our family tried many of the Time Travelers samples before we finally broke down and bought them. Our oldest son LOVED these studies when he was in grades 2-6, and our third son (9 years old) is now also begging to complete some new ones! To see other Hands-on History Studies we’ve completed, visit: