The world is bursting with art that even Micah and Skye can see and appreciate. All around us, flowers were blooming, trees were filling with flowers that faded into an array of greens, the sky became a bright blue, the sun lit up the world brightening the colors under it… May was the perfect month in Washington to read I Am an Artist together.
Pat Lowery Collins uses the natural world to introduce art concepts to young children in ways they can experience with their senses. As such, we experienced I Am an Artist differently than our other books so far. We didn’t use a lapbook or any art project, we simply experienced the world and everything in it with our senses.
But before I go into our study…
Just to Recap
We always begin our morning with our morning basket, a study time I call Morning Time. Essentially, I stage all our morning time study stuff for the day, or week, in a basket which keeps me organized and looks super cute! Our Morning Time consists of recitation, poetry reading, and devotional time with some music and fun learning activities mixed in. Specifically, Micah recites the catechism questions and Bible memory verses he’s learned- I introduce a new question and verse with every new book study. Then, in no particular order, I read a few poems and a chapter from either the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones or a Bible passage that corresponds with our lesson.
To break up the readings, we sing or listen to various styles of music and do a simple yet fun alphabet, numbers, or shapes activity. I do our Morning Time while we are all gathered around the table for breakfast, though you can do it anytime, really. But most importantly, I keep it short!
After a break, I normally don’t have a set time, we start our daily lesson beginning with the book we are studying. We only do an actual school lesson three or four days a week, though we begin every weekday morning with Morning Time. The other days are reserved for free learning in a fun environment!
For Micah’s lessons, I use the Before Five in a Row curriculum. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I detail the plan for our first year of homeschooling in Our School Year. With this curriculum, we read a new suggested story- which quickly becomes a favorite- every two weeks. I use the guide to structure our lessons, and supplement them with activities from Homeschool Share along with other stories and nonfiction books, craft ideas, and activities. I absolutely LOVE the Before Five in a Row curriculum and explain more about it and our homeschool style here!
That’s it in a nutshell, at least until I refine it again, and again… and again. Anyway…
Let’s Dig into Our Study!
Daily Morning Time
Bible Study
I introduced question eight in the Catechism for Young Children,
“What are they?” An answer to Question 7, “In how many persons does this one God exist?” The answer is, “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;” though Micah learned God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And for Micah’s Bible memory verse, he learned Matthew 22:39,
“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
For our devotional time, we read scripture, and the creation story from the Jesus Storybook Bible. For the first week, we read Isaiah 6:3b,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And Philippians 4:8,
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
I also read Don’t Forget to Remember by Ellie Holcomb to go along with our discussion. This is such a great book to show young children how to find God in everything they experience and to remember to praise His name.
For the second week, we read Psalm 19:1,
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
And the Beginning: A Perfect Home, The Song of Creation from Genesis 1 – 2 in the Jesus Storybook Bible. I also read Who Sang the First Song? to go along with our discussion. This is another great book by Ellie Holcomb that helps young children remember that our world is God’s creation and He wants us to enjoy it!
Poetry and Rhymes
We finished A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson this study! So, for fun, I mixed in some poems from Sally Go Round the Stars by Sarah Webb and Claire Ranson, Otters, Snails and Tadpole Tails by Eric Ode, and Playtime Rhymes by Marc Brown. We only read one poem a day because I added a few rhyming books during our Bible study time.
Alphabet, Numbers, Shapes
For the alphabet, numbers, and shapes activities, I randomly choose something from my go-to activities in order to break up the readings.
For the alphabet, I like to work through the alphabet sounds or match letters. I have Micah tell me the sounds of each letter, then we discover things that begin with each sound. Micah really likes to use Kane Miller’s Alfie and Bet’s ABC pop-up alphabet book and Usborne’s Get Ready for School Alphabet Sticker Book. I also like to work through his flash cards, he has a few different sets, and play the Alphabet Laundry game from our Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? study.
For numbers, I like to have Micah either count objects- marshmallows and M&Ms work great- or match and identify numbers. Right now, Micah is working on counting from 1 to 20 and tens up to 100. He uses a counting board I quickly made one day, and he places M&Ms or marshmallows in each block as he counts- it helps him count in order from 1 to 20. Or I have him identify numbers with our Usborne flashcards. I started to incorporate a little math with this lesson, too.
And for shapes, I like to have Micah identify shape cards. Sometimes we draw the shapes or even learn about their sides and points. And other times we use blocks with the shape cards to talk about two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes, and their corresponding names.
I Am an Artist Study
For I Am an Artist, we had two subject areas: Science and Art. We mostly discussed our five senses and experienced the world through them within our science lessons. And for art, we discussed several concepts and discovered them in nature. So, our lessons were like this: briefly discuss a science or art concept, then go find it and experience it in nature!
Below is our list of lessons and nature experiences, in no particular order. There are many ways to pair these lessons with nature activities, I just made a tentative plan, and let weather dictate what we did. Sometimes, there was no rhyme or reason why I paired certain lessons with certain activities. Honestly, all you have to do is walk out your front door- the world is full of art!
Science
Our Five Senses
Let’s be honest, we experienced our senses with every activity. So, I started off studying I Am an Artist with an introduction of our five senses. I went over the five senses and explained how we experience them with our bodies. You can do this however you want. We pointed to the body part that did the ‘sensing’ we were talking about, and then overexaggerated the ‘sensing’ action. This turned into a fun game as I called out one of the five sense and Micah pointed to the body part and looked, listened, smelled, tasted, or touched.
For other days, we focused on sensing pairs. One day I combined smell and taste, and we cooked and baked while smelling the deliciousness and tasting for saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and sweetness.
Another day, I combined seeing and hearing as we listened for animal sounds on a nature walk and looked for their maker. And another day, I combined touch with an art study on texture. Actually, we used all our senses in everything we did to smell the rain or a freshly mowed lawn, listen to the wind in the tress or the crash of ocean waves, feel soft feathers or rough tree bark, and much more.
Different Environments
For this study, I focused on the different environments around us. We discussed lake, pond, stream, and forest environments, what they are like and the plants and animals found in them. Then, we discussed ocean environments in the same way. To prepare, we used books in our home library to learn about these environments, and developed a plan to look for certain key things about each environment as we began our adventures.
Throughout our study, we walked through forest trails around streams, ponds, and lakes for a few days experiencing our senses and discovering plants and animals we learned about.
We also visited three different types beaches to experience our senses and discover different ocean plants and animals.
Art
Lines
For this lesson, we discussed different types of lines, I drew examples and Micah tried to copy them. He is just learning how to hold a pencil and trace, but he tried his best! Then, we went on a walk to find examples of straight, curved, spiral, jagged, and broken lines in nature. We collected several types of leaves and traced their lines with our fingers like in the story.
Texture
I paired this lesson with a three-dimensional shape study in our Morning Time. Its not important to do this, I just though it would be a good start to our lesson because we would be discovering different three-dimensional objects.
First, we looked at different textures in pictures. Then, we felt for different textures. On our forest adventure, Micah felt different types of tree bark and discovered their roughness. He also found different rocks and discovered their smoothness or roughness.
At home, I gathered some store bough feathers and cloth to feel for softness. Then, we played a blind-fold game with our collection of things. All we did for this was gather different textured items in a box, then I blind-folded Micah and Skye and had them feel each item, tell me how each felt, and guess what it was.
Colors
For this lesson, Micah learned his primary and secondary colors. Then, we went outside to experiment with primary colors and create secondary colors with our paints. You can pair this lesson with watching a sunset or hunting for rainbows after a fun day playing in water. But honestly, you’ll notice colors in every activity you do, from obvious rainbow colors to the marbled swirls of colors in a seashell.
Nature Activities
For every lesson above, I tried to pair it with a nature activity. I had general pairing ideas as described above, but below are a few more fun activities we randomly mixed in to experience our senses and find art around us.
Away from home adventures
One day, Micah was all about bugs. So, we grabbed our bug books and his special sticker bug book and went bug hunting! This activity can be paired with any art lesson because you can find colors, designs, and textures all throughout the bug world. Plus, there are always bugs on any nature adventure. To top off our bug study, we watched A Bug’s Life for our Saturday Family movie night!
As we ventured into the forest we hunted for different leaves, feathers, creepy crawlies, lizards, and animal tracks- like in the story. And as we ventured into ocean environments, we hunted for sand dollars, shells, crabs, and more animal tracks. There are so many lines, designs, colors, and textures to find! You can even collect objects to make a windchime of your forest adventure and ocean adventure to remember your experience.
As you adventure, have your child collect different textured and colored things for a sensory bin. Things to include can be smooth and rough rocks, tree bark, sand dollars, seashells of different types, and feathers. Each of these objects were mentioned in the story and have different textures and designs to marvel at.
Backyard fun
On a partly cloudy day, we cloud gazed for designs and pictures, like in the story. Then afterwards, I piled mounds of spray whipped cream, as clouds, for them to play with for a touch sensory activity.
We had a few rainy days during our study, so we played in the rain while experiencing it with all five of our senses. Then, we hunted for rainbows, like in the story.
We also had a few warm days, so we took a note from I Am an Artist and played in water all day! I set up a small outside pool for water play, we twirled water around with our hose to create designs, we used our fancy hose nozzle to create different water effects, and then hunted for rainbows. You can use all five sense with this fun activity, though you probably don’t want to drink the pool water!
We didn’t do this activity because the sunrise is too early and the sunset is too late for Micah and Skye, but you can watch a sunrise and sunset together and marvel at the colors. You can also talk about how the sun’s light changes the colors and shapes of the things it touches.
You can also look for shooting stars like in the story or plan your study around a meteor shower. We didn’t do this, but that’s because we just experienced a meteor shower the previous week! It was great to revisit our memory, though!
But Most Important… Have Fun!
I Am an Artist is yet another treasured book we have had the opportunity to add to our collection. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can get out of our stories! Seriously, I know I keep talking about it, but the Before Five in a Row curriculum is amazing! It’s so perfect for our pre-preschool studies! I just want to mention again though, we don’t spend much time at all ‘studying.’ I work with Micah maybe 30 minutes to an hour, three to four times a week. Mostly we are talking, playing, doing crafts or activities, and exploring fun places! It’s all about exposure and experience, and getting his little mind thinking! My goal is to make learning something fun that he wants to do and not just something he feels he must do to get good grades.
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