Over my years of homeschooling, I haven’t purchased many curriculum resources. The only subjects I needed support with beyond Steiner’s indications were science and art. This is hands down my favourite resource out there for learning about art through the grades from K-12.
Painting at School by Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart provides a clear, non-dogmatic exploration of the experience of art lessons through childhood. It is a handbook, a guide. It doesn’t talk of rules and things you must do, but paints an image of the child and how experiences in art support their development on all levels, body, sold and spirit.
Divided into six parts, each section has a special focus and covers not only the rudimentary knowledge that the adult presenting the lessons should know, like how colour effects us and how to prepare for a lesson, but insight into the impulse of each of the exercises.
What I love about this book, and makes it win over others out there right now, is that it never says or gives the feel that there is a right or wrong way to bring a lesson. It outlines some of the more common experiences, and also gives variations and suggestions for adaptation. It is playful and open ended and really calls on the adult to bring lessons from the heart, while at the same time providing enough structure that there is a feeling of “I can do this!” for the novice.
For each class year, the authors highlight the key components of the curriculum and how to pair an appropriate experience with the themes. They bring the reader through each grade by giving a picture of the key features of this phase of development and after an overview of the larger topics, examples of lessons are provided that are direct enough that you could use them as is, but open enough that you can easily adapt them to suit the needs of your children.
What I found most useful in this book is I was easily able to learn along side my children. I didn’t always have time to experience each lesson before I presented it to my children (although I HIGHLY recommend you do them before!) and there was enough of a framework that I could comfortably work through a lesson with my children, discovering the magic of painting or drawing along side them.
Despite the title of the book, it does include framework for other art mediums, such as charcoal and pencil drawings and sketching, depending on the focus of the grade.
The book ends with a section on Colour Research, summarizing work by Goethe, Steiner, Hebing and others, introducing us to deeper impulses to expand our practice and understanding of this vast subject.
This book is a treasure! It is the book I recommend to homeschooling families and I even use some of the exercises in my foundations teaching. It is written in such a way that it feels more like a discussion over tea in a living room than a lecture hall presentation. It is approachable, relatable and easily digestible. All hallmarks for us busy homeschooling parents and teachers!
It gets five stars in my books.
Until next time,
Marina
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