painting – The Schoolin' Swag Blog

The summer of reading, rest, and art appreciation. Every year, I try to evaluate where we are at, what we need, and how we can best spend our summer. After a year of many appointments (8-10 a week) and lots of activities, I mostly want to rest. We will still have multiple appointments each week, but thankfully, a few of those are coming to an end.

I want this summer to be a time where we can spend several days at home most weeks, enjoying time outside with the water mat, bikes, ninja course, and more. I also want to encourage my children to continue reading for fun and to improve fluency.

Overall, those were my goals for this summer: lots of reading and relaxing, with some pool and river time thrown in.

However, my boys have fallen in love with the Restorationists book series and, in turn, with Van Gogh and other famous artists. So, I have decided to find very easy and low-stress ways to include the fine arts in our summer./

I did not want something that would feel like a chore to them or me, so I am not adding a big class or plan. We are going to finish the restorationist series on audiobook during any driving time, and we have a fun day trip planned to the art museum with their cousins.

We also had the opportunity to stop at the Van Gogh Immersive Experience on our way to a camping trip last weekend, and I highly recommend it if you have an art lover in your life. We were fortunate enough to be going right by where it was only about a week before it closed, and we grabbed tickets at 40% off! My eight-year-old was already talking about wanting to go back before we ever left the parking lot!

Other than those two things, I am simply coming up with a list of ideas that we can implement, and whenever we have time, I’ll choose one from the list.

For example, Nana with You ARE and Artist has some great art lessons, including ones about famous artists. For example, here are several great ideas for Van Gogh.

HiGASFY has some fun videos about Van Gogh and other artists; there are library books, virtual art museum tours, and more that will only take a few minutes and require little to no prep from me.

This will allow them to dive deeper into their interests while not adding work to my plate this summer. Having a list to choose from, rather than a detailed plan, will also help me feel like I’m not failing if not everything gets done. (Tell me I’m not the only one who struggles with that.)

If interest remains strong in the fall, we can be more structured with one of the fine arts courses from You ARE an Artist.

I am adding the list of summer fun fine arts activities to the free content library, including links to some great virtual tours, so if you want to dive into fine arts this summer, make sure to grab it! You can also grab our free summer reading log to help encourage and track reading this summer.

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Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is now offering a lifetime option! They are a great place for a one-stop shop curriculum or a way to have a lot of options to fill in different electives and courses into what you have already chosen.

What is a Picto Kit?

There are multiple designs within the Picto Kit line, but we reviewed the Mountains kit. These kits use wood and fabric to create a fun and beautiful work of art. The child gently removes precut shapes from the wood, chooses fabric from the variety included in the kit, and covers the wooden pieces with different colors and patterns of fabric. The kit comes with a wide variety of upcycled fabric scraps to choose from (or you could use your own).

Once the wooden pieces returned to the frame, it is screwed onto the included block of wood using the included screws and the predrilled holes. The overall size is 7.5 in x 9.5 in. The Mountains kit makes a beautiful picture of two mountains with clouds in the sky and a big round sun at the top.

A short video tutorial (about four minutes long) explaining how the kit works can be accessed through a QR code. The directions were simple enough that my eleven-year-old son was able to watch the video and complete the project independently.

Picto Kit Components

The kit includes all of the materials necessary to complete this project, but you will need a hammer, screwdriver, and scissors.

If your child wants to paint the wooden block, you must provide paint and brushes. My son chose not to paint his, and it still turned out beautifully.

From start to finish, the project only took him about thirty minutes to complete.

Five Things We Loved About Picto Kits

You can unscrew the frame and trade out the fabric to make new designs as many times as you want, so it does not have to be a one-and-done project.

The different fabrics and geometric shapes encourage creativity.

Adding tools to art was a lot of fun for my son.

It was simple enough for younger children but creative and fun enough for even adults to use.

The wooden block and frame make the completed project very study.

The artist with his completed Mountains Picto Kit.

Who Should Use Picto Kits?

Overall, I think these are great projects for a variety of ages. They are beneficial as a part of your homeschool art studies or just as a fun project for your art-loving child. They would be a great summer project to sneak in some learning through play. The various colors and textures of the fabric, along with the fact that you can keep changing the fabrics, allow for a great deal of creativity and imagination.

You can hang the wooden frame on the wall to show off your child’s work, have them re-do the picture as often as they like, or even gift their artwork to a friend or relative. The sturdy wood and beautiful fabric easily make an art project suitable for gifting.

Find out more about these kits, and check out all the different designs at Timberdoodle!