Art Books for Elementary Students
Do you have a young budding artist on your hands? Or maybe your child has started to show interest in learning more about art.
Whatever the case may be, these Art Books for Elementary Students will help and inspire them on their creative journeys!
Anholt’s Artists Activity Book by Laurence Anholt
This strikingly original art instruction book for children was devised by the successful artist who is also the author of a popular children’s series of charming stories about many of the world’s great artists. Author Laurence Anholt emphasizes freedom and creativity as he tutors boys and girls through seven art projects in the same way that they might have been taught by such masters as Monet, Degas, and others. For example, kids are shown how to–
- Make a funky junk sculpture that resembles several works by Picasso
- Paint a portrait in the style of Van Gogh
- Make an action sculpture like Degas’s dancing figures
- Construct colorful cutout art in the style of Matisse
- Work with wild, wet watercolors in imitation of Monet
- Design a mad, marvelous machine like those constructed by Leonardo
- Take a charcoal challenge in the style of CézanneGuided by Anholt’s easy-to-follow format, kids will also find many tips and secrets to help them develop creative confidence.
An inspiring collection of ideas and projects for encouraging an artistic spirit in children!
Paint Lab for Kids features 52 fun, fresh, and kid-friendly art lessons that each explore a paint medium, technique, or effect. Popular artist and author Stephanie Corfee offers an exciting resource of easy-to-follow instructions supported throughout with step-by-step, full-color photographs. Each sequence is accompanied by finished samples and variations as well as the inspiring work of a prominent artist. The projects can be used independently throughout the year or as a curriculum for hands-on art experiences. This is the perfect book for creative families, friends, and community groups and works as lesson plans for both experienced and new teachers. Children of all ages and experience levels can be guided by adults and will enjoy these engaging exercises. Paint Lab for Kids is an excellent resource to get your kids working and creating with paint.
13 Paintings Children Should Know by Angela Wenzel
People of all ages are fascinated by Mona Lisa’s beguiling smile, Van Gogh’s hypnotic night sky, and Frida Kahlo’s depiction of herself with a monkey. These paintings and ten others are featured in the book in large reproductions with accompanying details. The readable text offers biographical information about each artist and important facts about the painting’s technical and historical aspects. Games, quizzes, and coloring exercises provide additional opportunities for young readers to interact with the artworks, while a timeline throughout the book allows for easy historical orientation. Readers will return again and again to these works, which provide continued opportunities for contemplation and discovery.
Art Workshop for Children is not just another book of straightforward art projects. The book’s unique child-led approach provides a framework for cultivating creative thinking and encourages the wonder that comes when children are allowed to freely explore the creative process and their materials.
As children work through these open-ended workshops, adults are guided on how to be guides who provide questions, encourage deep thinking, and help spark an excitement for discovery.
Explore basic materials and workshops that use minimal supplies, and then gradually add new materials to fill the art cabinets as well as new skills and more complex workshops.
Interspersed throughout are sidebar essays that introduce perspectives on mess-making, imperfection, the role of adult, collaborative art, and thoughts on the Reggio Emilia method, a self-guided teaching philosophy.
These pieces underscore the value of art-making with children, and support the parent/teacher/care-giver on how to successfully lead, question, and navigate their children through the workshops to result in the fullest experiences.
The Language of Art: Inquiry-Based Studio Practices in Early Childhood Settings by Ann Pelo
Typical art resources for teachers offer discrete art activities, but these don’t carry children or teachers into the practice of using the languages of art. This resource offers guidance for teachers to create space, time, and intentional processes for children’s exploration and learning to use art for asking questions, offering insights, exploring hypotheses, and examining experiences from unfamiliar perspectives.
Inspired by an approach to teaching and learning born in Reggio Emilia, Italy, The Language of Art, Second Edition, includes:
- A new art exploration for teachers to gain experience before implementing the practice with children
- Advice on setting up a studio space for art and inquiry
- Suggestions on documenting children’s developing fluency with art media and its use in inquiry
- Inspiring photographs and ideas to show you how inquiry-based practices can work in any early childhood setting
Ann Pelo is a teacher educator, program consultant, and author whose primary work focuses on reflective pedagogical practice, social justice and ecological teaching and learning and the art of mentoring. Currently, Pelo consults early childhood educators and administrators in North America, Australia, and New Zealand on inquiry-based teaching and learning, pedagogical leadership, and the necessary place of ecological identity in children’s—and adults’—lives. She is the author of several books including the first edition of The Language of Art and co-author of Rethinking Early Childhood Education.
