All Of Us Can ArtAchieve – A Review of Entire Level II Online Art Lessons for kids by ArtAchieve
What Is ArtAchieve?
When the opportunity to review ArtAchieve‘s Entire Level II Art Lessons for kids came our way, I could not pass it up.
This is so much more than a set of art lessons. I realized immediately that these lessons are designed to teach your child eye-hand coordination, provide her with the skills to intently focus on tasks, and learn about a range of cultures and histories in a fun and engaging environment.
The focus of ArtAchieve’s art curriculum is on two areas:
- First is developing the eye-hand coordination necessary for drawing what you see. This leads to developing your child’s prefrontal cortex, much in the same way as other focus-intensive tasks like karate.
- Second is learning that if you understand the history and culture and even a bit of music of a given geographical region, you can create that region’s art easily.
Each lesson is set up into three layers:
- A history and culture mini-lesson. This helps you to set ideas for colors and decorations in the picture you will create.
- Practice developing eye-hand coordination by drawing warm ups and then doing the actual drawing.
- Unleashing your child’s creativity to fill in the decorations and personalize their picture. This last step is probably the easiest for children and the hardest for those of us adults who are out of practice with creativity.
I set about with the intention of reviewing the ArtAchieve lessons myself, as my children had packed schedules, but soon I found them helping me complete my lessons and finally they took over to do lessons on their own.
That is a testament to how fun and compelling these lessons are! You will find that they draw everyone in the family in.
From an adult’s perspective, working through the ArtAchieve lessons is like making your own coloring pages and then decorating and coloring them. The lessons are great for forcing you to concentrate on only one thing for about an hour (something homeschooling moms often forget how to do) and they get you used to the idea of mistakes.
As an adult, you can work through the lessons and then easily coach a child who for reasons of special needs cannot sit through the video or read the lesson text. The lessons are designed in a way that is so flexible, a child with any abilities will find it fun and rewarding.
Will ArtAchieve’s Lessons Enhance Your Homeschool?
The lessons are a wonderful addition to any homeschool. Your child will love these lessons. They are fun and also help your child develop concentration skills.
Your child will learn to think about where her pen is headed on the page and develop the confidence to draw with a permanent marker. These may seem like skills suited only to art, but if you think about it, your child is also learning to think ahead with confidence in her judgement abilities.
And those are skills that translate to any aspect of her life. These are priceless.
What Comes With ArtAchieve Entire Level II?
The subscription to ArtAchieve EntireLevel II includes 15 different art lessons:
- The Swedish Dala Horse
- The Korean Wedding Duck
- The Japanese Goldfish
- The Elephant from Ghana
- The Ukrainian Cat
- The German Nutcracker
- The Sri Lankan Landscape With An Elephant
- Tessellations: Repeating A Pattern To Create Original Art
- The Ukrainian Rooster
- Hiding Butterflies
- The Mexican Mask
- The Russian Fortress — Color Value and Analogous Colors
- The Polish Szopka
- The Mermaid from Denmark
- The Weaving from Thailand
Also, each lesson comes with printable drawing sample and/or warm-ups for each lesson, wonderful video lessons, and optional written lesson texts.
Lesson Components
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Each lesson starts with a bit of geography and art history and history and culture of the region that the lesson’s art comes from.
- Next is a bit of time to relax and prepare your child’s focus.
- Music is important to include while your child is working on the art lesson. Music is provided in the video lessons and there are suggested sites to find relaxing music as well.
- Additionally, there are Cross Curricular Connections provided for each lesson that allow you to essentially turn the lessons into unit studies.
Lesson Rules
- Keep silent, this is how you keep your focus.
- It is OK if you don’t like your art the first time. You can redo lessons until you like them.
- Draw for yourself, not for your mom or your friend. Make the art for you.
- Look at the idea that the instructor presents in the lesson and use it if you like it. If you don’t like it then use your own idea.
- There are no mistakes. That is why you don’t draw with pencil in these lessons. If you start with a tool you know you can erase then you are less likely to maintain your focus.
Additional Materials You Will Need
You will need a supply of paper, black magic markers, and some water-soluble markers. The requirements for your child to do a lot of great art with these lessons are really minimal. In fact you probably have most everything you need at home already.
Time Required To Teach This
The time to complete a lesson at Level II is roughly 30 minutes to an hour.
Given the length of each lesson, you probably want to work through lessons side-by-side your younger children, or those with special needs who may benefit from help maintaining focus.
That said, when I did the lessons alone, I had so much fun thinking about details and design and color so I did each lesson over the course of several days. The lesson time all depends on how much your child enjoys the process. And I think for these lessons it really is more about the process than completing a project.
Did We Like It?
Absolutely. The lessons are deceptive in a way. At first glance they appear to be a lot like the art programs that parents volunteer-teach in public schools. But nothing could be further from the truth.
These art lessons teach your child focus, eye-hand coordination, develop her creativity, learn some geography and history and culture,. But most importantly these lessons will develop your child’s brain.
Give Your Child The Gift of Brain Development
Decision making is a skill your child’s brain needs training under calm conditions in order to be able to make reasoned and clear decisions under stressful times.
These lessons with their relaxation, music, and rules combination are a wonderful way to help your child develop purposeful action and clear thinking skills.
The DoodleMom Scoresheet for Entire Level II from ArtAchieve
General Features
- Easy to Adapt To Your Homeschool
- Adapts to Teach Multiple Children (Multiple Ages)
- Accessible to Children with Dylsexia / Dysgraphia
- Works with Gifted Children
Works with these Age Ranges
- Lower Elementary (1-3)
- Elementary (4-6)
- Middle Years (6-8)
- High School (9-12)
Good For These Educational Styles
- Classical
- Traditional (like public school)
- Eclectic
- Unschooling
- Unit Study
- Charlotte Mason
Subjects Covered
- Art
- Reading
- Writing
- Math
- Other: Geography, PE
- Science
- Social Studies / History
For Kids Who Like
- Hands-On Activities
- Independent Work
- Unit Studies
- Video Instruction / Online Lessons
