Global Art Homeschool Art Book a Schoolhouse Review
My mother is a retired art teacher so I was excited when we got the chance to review Global Art: Activities, Projects, and Inventions from Around the World by Gryphon House through the Homeschool Review Crew. I thought it would be a good thing to get her involved with our homeschool art classes.
With Global Art the idea is that children can discover more about the global world around them by experiencing some of the arts and crafts of an area. It’s about the process and not the final product (which is good because our final products were never Pinterest worthy anyway).
Why Art Lessons for Homeschoolers?
Art is a wonderful activity to include in your homeschool. It helps your child express their creativity. Most every child loves to dip into paints, moosh clay into something interesting, or just make a mess. Art is part of every child’s elementary schooling but sometimes homeschoolers are at a loss on how to bring it beyond the paste and scissors.
Global Art features creative crafts from around the globe. Your student may come upon something that sparks further interest and exploration.
About Global Art by Gryphon
Global Art: Activities, Projects, and Inventions from Around the World is a 190 page softcover book. It contains over 135 projects and is designed to introduce children to cultures around the world through various craft projects in different levels.
- The table of contents in Global Art is first organized by continent.
- Each chapter then focuses on a different continent with various crafts being attributed to different countries. At the beginning of each chapter is a list of the countries you’ll visit and the types of art featured there.
- For example we visited Europe and then France where we learned about making soap.
- On the page for each craft is a small paragraph giving you a bit of background or historic information as to how or why this craft is done in the region.
- At the top of each page are symbols letting you know if you need to be extra careful, what type of craft this is (sculpture, construction, collage, painting, drawing, cutout, etc.), how much preparation, and what level of craft this is.
How Did We Use GLOBAL ART
Since we were done with our homeschool year by the time we started Global Art we chose to pick and choose a few crafts to dig into that were of interest to us or from places we had studied in the past year.
My top pick was the soap making from France.
Soapmaking is said to have it’s origins in Ancient Rome but not evolve into the soap we know today until the French got a hold of it. French soap is famous around the world and I regularly order our bath olive soap from Marseille which has been made in a traditional style since the Middle Ages.
We followed the steps to make soap which I personally thought were ingenious because it wasn’t soap from scratch but actually a very useful way to deal with the little pieces of soap we all have lying around the house. That put the craft into the beginner stage and Sweet Peanut and I had a great time making new lavendar smelling soaps from the scraps I’ve been saving for quite some time.
You can see the images from my steps above. That Sweet Peanut stirring the pot.
We’ve got quite a few crafts bookmarked to do but another one that Sweet Peanut has been working on is Map Making. This is listed as an experienced craft but I’m letting her have her way with it as it seems to be an interest of hers.
Map making is attributed to the Germans.
What did we like About GLOBAL ART?
This is an excellent resource. It is well put together and includes a nice variety of crafts. The best thing about this book is that is it very versatile. It’s a great way to incorporate a bit of hands on into your Science, History, Geography, Math, and even Reading (recipes) courses. But even more than that many of these are crafts you can do with items you have around the house. And it’s a great rainy day filler too.
Global Art: Activities, Projects, and Inventions from Around the World is a great book to enjoy anytime not just during school.