MaryAnn F. KohlDiscovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning (TM))

We are using this excellent book at the basis of our art curriculum this year and next year in our homeschool co-op, involving boys and girls from age 7 to 14. Each week we learn about a different artist and do at least one project. The techniques taught have all been very well done; materials are easily found and the processes realistic for our small budget program, while being of high artistic quality, really helping our children deepen their understanding and art ability.The teacher or the students research the artist, bringing in books or prints of his/her works as examples. The only shortcoming of this book is that only one example of the artist's work (OR of a child's work) is shown in black and white per page. We found that we wanted more input in this area to truly inspire the children's creativity. We have changed some of the projects to correspond to a holiday or specific interest of our children. For example, we used the projects in the book to make several kinds of holiday cards. We include social studies in our art study as this book is written in rough chronological order. Each student has an 11 x 14 sketchbook, a pencil case, and watercolor paper. We share our other materials and buy some materials as they are needed. Each student is keeping a timeline of the artists in the front cover of the sketchbook. We have assigned some drawing as homework during the week and in the fall each student wrote a report on an artist.The techniques in this book could easily be used with younger children and, by adding the biographic and historical elements to the study, we are extending the curriculum into high school.

Loaned my copy out and it never came back so at least one person out there thought it worthy of stealing it. Replaced it with a pre-used copy and will tell future folk to buy their own. Excellent resource for teachers, parents, anyone

I was excited about this book before I even opened it, and having read through it and planned several projects for our homeschooled kindergartner and preschooler, I am even more excited! This book covers pretty much every possible art form and gives great background information on the artists represented, without being so much information that it would be boring to a child. The projects are creative and all of them look like great fun. This is one book that I feel was worth the money (so many craft books end up being an "I could have thought of that on my own" experience!). My only disappointment with this book is that the illustrations are other children's artwork and there are no examples of the artists' actual work. However, I am sure we can find all we need to supplement this book just by looking on the internet. All in all, this was a great buy and I am very excited to use this book with my children for several years to come! I give it five stars.

This book is exactly what it says it is; hands on activities related to a great artist for children. I'm a Trivium Classical Education/Charlotte Mason Classical Education hybrid homeschooler. I bought this book to include hands on ideas as we study the Early Modern Era (1600-1850) using Story of the World as our history spine. ( I wish I'd heard about it when planning for the Medieval Period last year.)The activities themselves are simple and use easy to get supplies. I appreciate that each one is designed to emphasize something in particular the great artist was known for. For example, the two activities related to Rembrandt are Making Faces and Shadowy Faces. The child experiences focusing on these two things by drawing the face of someone sitting next to a spotlight or unshaded lamp and sketching as best they can facial features and shadows after careful observation. The other has the child doing self portraits of different expressions in the mirror. Each activity includes a short, simple paragraph explaining that Rembrandt was well known for doing each of these things very well. After having done the activity in Discovering the Great Artists (DGA) the child will know what to look FOR in a painting or sketch by that particular artist and have some experience with actually doing a little of it. This book is about the experience, not the study. It does that well.If you want to do more of a study about the artist and his or her paintings then you'll need other resources. There are a few small black and white images of masterworks in the book but they're for reference, not for study. You'll need to supplement with something else in addition. Mike Venezia does a series of short, simple biographies of artists and their works and historical figures that would fit this age and ability range. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Mike+venezia There are places online and many books that have full color images of masterworks for the child to look at. Fine Art Stickers of each artist and fine art coloring books by Dover Publications can also dovetail nicely with this book. Amazon has them here for a good price.For those of you who want to work this book into lesson plans, the authors had you in mind. There are several different charts and indexes depending on how the adult wants to organize and use these activities. There's the standard alphabetical by artist name, a list of each great artist's birthday organized by month, a list organized by art techniques, another by great art styles, a materials index, and an index of artist terms and their definitions. The Chart of Contents at the beginning includes the page number, the artist's name, lifetime, the name of the art activity, the artist's style, art technique, child level, and adult prep time. This is particularly useful for people incorporating these activities into a lesson plan based on a history spine. They're in chronological order.If you're studying the Ancients (10,000BCE-500 CE) skip this book. There aren't any here.If you're studying The Medieval Period/Middle Ages (500-1600) There are 15 artists that fit that time period.If you're studying The Early Modern Era (1600-1850) there are 8 artists that fit that time period.If you're studying The Late Modern Era (1850-present day) there are about 56 artists that fit that time period.The only downside to this book is the shape and binding. Being long and bound on the narrow side it's harder for those of us who use a 36 week file folder system for assignments. I had my local Staples cut the spine off and 3 whole punch it for me along the bottom of the pages so I can put each one in the file for the week we actually do it. When we're done with each, I can put them back in the 3 ring binder with the pages we aren't using this year. It's a little awkward to flip through them in the binder this way but not such a hassle that I would discourage someone from buying the book.NOTE* If you're using it with Story of the World (SOTW) 3 here are the chapters I've aligned them to. I took into account the artist's birth country, country he lived in and historical events in his lifetime for placement as best I could. I plan to update this review next summer when I'm finished with my planning the Late Modern Period.SOTW 3/Great Artist & DGA page numberCh. 2 Protestant Rebellions/ Rembrandt 28 & 29Ch. 5 Warlords of Japan/ Hokusai 34Ch. 16 Russia Looks West/ Linnaeus 30Ch. 17 The English in India/ Gainsborough 31Ch. 19 Fighting Over North America/ Blake 32Ch. 27 A Changing World/ Constable 33Ch. 30 The End of Napoleon/ Courbet 36Ch. 32 The Opened West/ Audubon 35UPDATED: 7/8/15These are my lessons plans to coordinate with Story of the World 4 By Bauer. Since there are so many artists in that era (1850-1994) to choose from, I had to narrow it down.1. I looked for Fine Art Stickers available here at amazon for about $1.50 for a book that have 16 different paintings by each artist listed in Discovering Great Artists in the Chart of Contents on pgs. 8-10. I found and ordered: Cassat, Cezanne, Chagall, Dali, Degas, Gauguin, Kahlo, Kandinsky, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gough. That's enough for 3-4 artists per quarter.2. I sorted them by nationality and matched them with the chapters and the individual reading in each chapter that related to historical events in that nation. There were so many French artists that a few of them had to be placed at random in the last quarter when none of the historical events matched the artist's nationality. Sometimes life happens.The numbers after the artist's name indicates the page numbers from Discovering Great Artists that have the instructions for an activity related to that artist.Ch. 3 British Invasions-The Great Game (Degas 40-41, French)Ch. 5 The American Civil War- After the Civil War (Cassat 44, American)Ch. 9 Two More Empires, Two Rebellions- The Dutch East Indies (Van Gogh 46-47, Dutch)Ch. 14 Two Czars, Two Emperors; The Next to Last Czar of Russia (Chagall 76, Jewish Russian)Ch. 15 Small Countries with Large Invaders, The Spanish-American War (Picasso 69-71, Spanish)Ch. 20 Revolution in the Americas...War in the World,The Mexican Revolution (Kahlo 80-81, Mexican)Ch. 21 A Revolution Begins & a Great War Ends, The Russian Revolution (Kandinsky 60, Russian)Ch. 27 Civil War & Invasion; Red Spain, Black Spain, a King & a General (Dali 78, Spanish)Ch. 28 The Second World War, The 3-War War (Monet 39, French)Ch. 31 Western Bullies & American Money, The Marshall Plan (Seurat 54, French)Ch. 33 Communism in Asia, Ho Chi Minh & the Viet Minh (Renoir 45, French)(Cezanne 48, Gaugin 51 and Toulouse-Lautrec 52-53, French) Randomly placed in the 4th quarter as there are no chapters about France.

I have an eleven year old, ten year old and a five year old I am homeschooling this year. We usually reserve Friday afternoons for a science experiment and an art project. I had been coming up with art projects on my own. (I am rather inclined in the arts) so it wasn't a problem. However, I borrowed this book from another friend and saw what great ideas it has for 1. art appreciation and 2. hands on art projects in the style of the artist being studied. What a great combination. No, the book does not have any colored photos, which would have been fabulous, but it has great background information on the artist or style and suggestions for a project as well as an example of that project by a student. For example, we studied the English painter John Constable and did a watercolor painting of the sky and landscape like he did. No there were not great color paintings of his in this book however if you do a quick search on youtube you find several lovely compilation videos of his works. Great overviews to go along with this book. I love it and only wish I had found it sooner. It would also be great to add reading a biography about the artist being studied as well.

adaptable to any grade. gets you thinking about the artist and the process. Many colleagues have wanted to borrow and check out.

Was disappointed to see the book. Was expecting colored pictures, but it's all black and white.

I founf myself so engrossed in the book that I forget what I was looking for - a great sign of a good book. Really interesting.

As described.

I purchased this book as a resource for my 5th grade art class. The students enjoy learning about the artists and trying their hand at copying their style.