Using Art in Learning

[imagine.more]

I've just discovered a strength of Daisy's (yay!) Yesterday she drew me pictures of each house she's lived in and was able to really communicate her story much better this way. Whenever we've asked about her past before or she's told us stories it's all jumbled and confused and she struggles to get her thoughts in order to tell us what she wants.

 

It's like "one time my brother John got hit in the head with a rock. There was a lot of blood" "oh no! did someone hit him on purpose or on accident?" "well, um, uh, see there were these boys at my aunts house that were not nice. My sister was supposed to be watching him, but she went inside. And uh, those boys were playing....or, no, they were not playing. They were just, uh, I don't remember, doing something? And they hit John with a rock. And we didn't know because we were inside. Well, then we were outside with him sort of."

 

So as you can see it's confusing for her and us, lol! But with these pictures she was truly able to collect her thoughts and convey a clear picture of where she lived and when, why they moved each time, etc. 

 

This discovery got me to thinking I should use more art and visual things (not text) with her when we homeschool. As a hearing impaired non-reader I think maybe we could use hands on activities and pictures to study content areas like history and science. And maybe I could have her draw along with writing assignments and slowly work her from expressing her thoughts in pictures to expressing them in words. 

 

Any ideas or resources for using art more in learning? And any recommendations of simple drawing courses we could do, because she thinks she can't draw well so she sometimes gets self-conscious about drawing? 

[OneStepAtATime]

My daughter does much better if I approached things visually, especially with an art bent in mind.  We even got her Architectural Digest, not because she wants to be an architect, because she started looking at the patterns in the construction of the buildings and seeing things I had never noticed, mainly from an art perspective.  She loves those magazines.  She finds it relaxing to thumb through those and take walks in the neighborhood to look at the aesthetics of the construction and external layout and presentation of the houses.  Although we have not had her assessed through an audiologist, I know there is some sort of auditory processing issue.  She does really poorly with books on cd or if I give a lot of verbal instruction in school unless I go slowly and emphasize important points with my voice.  She IS very articulate, she just seems to get confused with lots of speech bombarding her.  Visually presented "picture" and kinesthetic data presentation works much better for her than either print or auditory alone.

 

I am in the process of moving her to a more art focused approach for History because that is a hated subject for her (I suspect partly because she has no sense of the passage of time so "history" just doesn't mean anything to her).  We are going to start using How Art Made the World series from BBC as a spine for some activities starting in January but I am still pulling that together.  Since my son is studying WWI and WW II at his own request, I also had my daughter look at Faberge and his contributions, not just with his eggs, and tied that into a kind of mini-study of Russia before, during, and eventually right after WW I (not at the end yet).  We got to see a Faberge exhibit in another city we were traveling through a few months ago, so she had a visual reference.  In fact, that exhibit was what gave me the idea.  When Dad and son got really bored and headed through the rest of the museum, she and I stayed in the Faberge exhibit at her request, and she spent her time studying in detail every single one of the items on display, fascinated by the color, the materials, the design, etc.  She asked me not to talk to her because it was distracting.  She is dyslexic, so if she came across something she couldn't read, she had me help her, but lots of talking frustrates her.  She loved how quiet it was and most people just walked through quickly and left.  She could just slowly make her way through, enjoying the moment and studying the way her brain works best.  After our visit, each of the kids was allowed to pick one thing to buy at the museum.  She normally loves jewelry, although not really to wear, more to use in her 3D art constructions.  This time, she picked a huge book on Faberge.  It has been a very useful reference, even though I have to read a lot to her at the moment.

 

All that to say, I think you are on to a great idea.   As I think of any specific sources, I will pass them along, since you and I seem to be sort of heading in the same direction with this.  My daughter is 13, by the way....

[Heathermomster]

When DS was younger and being tutored for reading, he used to draw picture notes in the margins of the stories that he read.  Basically, he was annotating with pictures.

 

There's Mapping the World with Art for geography/history.  You may want to explore mindmapping and Inspiration software on the iPad.  Give her stickers and colored pens/pencils to use as she completes her school work.  Some students do that when outlining.

[OneStepAtATime]

I also keep a LOT of art supplies of various types in a cabinet we bought damaged and then repaired.  We needed the storage space but regular cabinets are expensive and usually not deep enough for paint canvases storage.  The damaged one was much cheaper, deeper than a normal cabinet, and it is metal so it was easy to bang out the dings and use metal spray paint to repaint it.  The cabinet is lockable, so if there are supplies that might be dangerous for youngers, or I want to ration more expensive materials so guests don't get into it, I can lock it and she has a key.  This includes clay, paints, canvases of any size, water colors, oil pastels, construction paper, thin metals, art tools, etc.  I let her organize it her way, but we put everything in it together and it was a fun mother-daughter project.  I go to art supply stores and look for clearance items, and buy a bunch when they are on deep discount.  Several months ago I was able to get 30 canvases and a lot of different types of paint at 80-85% off.  

 

Besides the colored pencils and pens that Heathermomster suggested (which we use a lot of), my dd loves the newer, very thin colored sharpie pens.  The colors are vibrant and the tip is very tiny so she can make accurate drawings.  She annotates with pictures during some of our lessons, and it helps her remember things, although until Heathermomster put it that way, I had not really grasped that this is essentially what she was doing.  (The ladies on here really keep me thinking and revising my perception of the world and my kids on a regular basis.  Love it.   :)  )

[imagine.more]

When DS was younger and being tutored for reading, he used to draw picture notes in the margins of the stories that he read.  Basically, he was annotating with pictures.

 

There's Mapping the World with Art for geography/history.  You may want to explore mindmapping and Inspiration software on the iPad.  Give her stickers and colored pens/pencils to use as she completes her school work.  Some students do that when outlining.

 

I like the idea of annotating with pictures. I learned something similar in English Ed classes. One tool for teaching kids in reading was to have them draw pictures, like a code, to make notes on the text. They'd draw a heart next to something they loved, a question mark next to anything confusing, etc. It's better than highlighting, more specific and yet not too specific or overwhelming. I could see expanding that for Daisy to aid her in her reading comprehension. 

 

I love that Mapping the World with Art book, it looks excellent.

 

I'm going to check out the mindmapping on the iPad, my DH has a iPad the kids love to borrow. And I've been considering expanding our art supplies anyway so this might be a good time to get her some art supplies specific to her. 

[imagine.more]

I also keep a LOT of art supplies of various types in a cabinet we bought damaged and then repaired.  We needed the storage space but regular cabinets are expensive and usually not deep enough for paint canvases storage.  The damaged one was much cheaper, deeper than a normal cabinet, and it is metal so it was easy to bang out the dings and use metal spray paint to repaint it.  The cabinet is lockable, so if there are supplies that might be dangerous for youngers, or I want to ration more expensive materials so guests don't get into it, I can lock it and she has a key.  This includes clay, paints, canvases of any size, water colors, oil pastels, construction paper, thin metals, art tools, etc.  I let her organize it her way, but we put everything in it together and it was a fun mother-daughter project.  I go to art supply stores and look for clearance items, and buy a bunch when they are on deep discount.  Several months ago I was able to get 30 canvases and a lot of different types of paint at 80-85% off.  

 

Besides the colored pencils and pens that Heathermomster suggested (which we use a lot of), my dd loves the newer, very thin colored sharpie pens.  The colors are vibrant and the tip is very tiny so she can make accurate drawings.  She annotates with pictures during some of our lessons, and it helps her remember things, although until Heathermomster put it that way, I had not really grasped that this is essentially what she was doing.  (The ladies on here really keep me thinking and revising my perception of the world and my kids on a regular basis.  Love it.   :)  )

 

I love the art cabinet you set up for your daughter, what a great thing for her! We're currently finishing our basement partly as a homeschool area so maybe I can find a space that could serve a similar purpose. Especially with lots of littles around she could use an area out of their reach to keep the nicer art supplies anyway. I just told my friend that she would like art supplies for Christmas (my friend is very artsy herself) so hopefully she'll have more mature art supplies soon, not just our big collection of broken crayons :)

[OneStepAtATime]

Oh, one thing I wanted to mention that has helped with science is DD constructing a lot of things in clay or Styrofoam or even mud and leaves.  I take pictures afterwards since not all mediums last long and some are really hard to store.  I got the idea while she was still in a b&m school.   She had a great science teacher for 3rd through 5th (loved, loved, loved that woman), and they did a LOT of field trips and hands-on physics and chemistry and biology experiments and activities, etc. They also did a lot of dissection.  This teacher was intense.  She had a classroom FULL of various live creatures (birds, snakes, lizards, spiders, etc.) and the kids were trained in how to take care of them.  Sometimes, though, there  was also a lot of reading and filling in worksheets, too.  DD just was NOT grasping the concepts when presented that way and really struggled.  After we got the diagnosis of dyslexia (we didn't yet realize that she wasn't actually understanding a lot of the spoken instruction either, not just the written instruction) the teacher offered to let her construct the parts of the various creatures they were studying and then bring the construct to class and verbally tell everyone all the parts and what they did, etc.  It was wonderful.  I was able to get a lot of different colored playdoh really cheap and she was able to color code all the parts and make it possible to pull back the outer shell to see inside.  She finally was retaining the information and was able to clearly articulate what each part did, etc.  We still try to use that technique whenever it is possible.  Also, I am trying to do more hands on science experiments BEFORE introducing a concept in any depth so she has a visual reference to refer to.

[OneStepAtATime]

Some books that I own or am looking into purchasing that I hope to incorporate starting in January:

 

Science Arts: Discovering Science through Art Experiences by MarryAnn Kohl and Jean Potter

Math ART by Carol Ford Brunetto

Family Math by Jean Kerr Stenmark, Virginia Thompson, Ruth Cossey

 

Also, now that we are doing Chemistry, the kids are picking one element that they want to focus on learning more about each week and we start with an experiment, where possible but we also do The Periodic Table of Elements Coloring Book.  I actually copy the page onto card stock so it is more durable and they color it any way they like to add to their elements notebook.

 

Not sure how you feel about religious-based curriculum but another thing the kids and I are going to be doing in January is the See The Light Art Projects.  They are DVD based instruction.  You could do the art projects with her and help her with understanding the verbal instructions and the video would show both of you how to complete the art projects.  It covers  Art History, Art Elements, Art principles, etc., but in a light way, not overwhelming.

 

Hope that helps some... 

[geodob]

A crucial value of a visual image, is that we can combine multiple elements in a visual image, and then recognize how they all fit together.

With a visual image, we can easily shift our focus from whole to part and back.

A change to any part, and its effect on the whole, is immediately apparent.

 

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

A crucial value of a visual image, is that we can combine multiple elements in a visual image, and then recognize how they all fit together.

With a visual image, we can easily shift our focus from whole to part and back.

A change to any part, and its effect on the whole, is immediately apparent.

I think you and my daughter would get along great.  I have a terrible time doing that.  She doesn't.   :)  And I frustrate her no end because of it.

[Heathermomster]

Imagine,

 

Here's a current thread that may be applicable:

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/498793-art-based-curriculum-for-any-subject-does-it-exist/