If you’ve been homeschooling for longer than a day, you may have heard the term “morning basket”. It’s basically a basket that you do each morning (or whenever your designated time is) that includes read aloud books, the Bible, hands-on math supplements, science projects, art appreciation, music, etc. You can put anything you want into your morning basket.
Recently, I discovered a way to get more art into our homeschool. Art is such a fun way for a child to express their imagination. So, we decided to create an “art basket”. It contains only art supplies and books. You can make it into a cart as well but a basket is sufficient for my family.
When thinking about creating an art basket, think about what your goal for your family will be. If you want to really dig into the artists, have lots of books about artists. If you want to study a certain technique such a watercolors, make sure to have plenty of supplies. You also want to take into consideration the ages of your children. My boys are 10, 8, and 6. My 10 year old has a true love for art. My 8 year old is very eclectic and likes to be more imaginative. My 6 year old, well, let’s just say he does his own thing.
An art basket doesn’t have to be fancy. I use an old tub I had lying around. Each month you can change out the books and supplies to study different artists, time periods, or techniques. We are loving chalk pastels lately so our basket is filled with chalk pastels and art paper (heavier than just regular printer paper). I also have some mini artist cards I bought at a thrift store but you can purchase a nice set on rainbowresource.com. Having miniature-sized cards is nice for my children because they can each choose a different piece of art and go from there.
I also have “how to draw…” books in my art basket. For instance, a Step-by-step Drawing People book. This book gives you details about how to draw a person. My boys love books like this because otherwise they would draw stick people. They get that from me. Since I have no talent in the art department, I tag along in their art studies. It has helped me to develop my skills even as an adult.
Depending on what I have decided to study for the month, I may include a book about the actual artist. My husband loves Vincent Van Gogh. We do a basket that includes him every other month. My boys love to try to recreate his paintings and show their daddy. It’s been fun to see how each of my boys interprets the same painting. They end up all completely different.
Another thing to consider when creating an art basket is technique As I mentioned above, we have been obsessed with chalk pastels lately. Before that it was watercolors. We just make sure we have the needed supplies ahead of time.
We’ve also done themed art baskets such as rock painting. In our town there is a huge rock painting group. People paint hundreds of rocks during the summer and leave them all over the city. We actually go rock hunting every weekend in spring and summer. We’ve found dozens of beautifully painted rocks. We started doing them ourselves and found that some of us are pretty talented (my husband and children) and some of us need to hone our skills a bit (me). But it’s so much fun to paint something knowing someone else will take it home and treasure as we have treasured our rocks.
Creating an art basket doesn’t have to be complicated. You also don’t have to do it every single day. It can be a special basket that only comes out on Fridays. You can include Youtube lessons (there are tons of art channels) or professional lessons. You can also just read some good books and study art from them. I do suggest to take your children to an actual art museum at some point. My children could not believe the beauty in the paintings up close. They loved that you could see each brush stroke.
However you decide to begin an art basket, just start. It can be as simple as drawing with pencils on a notebook. Children will love it and you will too.
