Teach Art Appreciation with a 365-Day Calendar

Homeschoolers make art appreciation too complicated — too fussy, too drawn out, too obscure.  I see so many questions in forums and Facebook groups, posted by moms wholly intimidated by the idea of teaching art to their children.

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to tackle all the art at once.

You don’t have to learn how to draw like Leonardo da Vinci.

You don’t have to be an art historian.

You don’t have to be able to explain what you see. (Read Truths to Zap your Fears about Teaching Art.)

[We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.]

Effective art appreciation in your homeschool can be as simple as turning a calendar page.

Really.

You can amble through the halls of Metropolitan Museum of Art at home.

You can thoughtfully take hundreds of different works of art in a single year.

You can teach art appreciation as easily as enjoying one masterpiece per day.

Art: 365 Days of Masterpieces 2019 Desk Calendar is a delightful daily burst of art from The MET, and it’s already become the most effortless art appreciation curriculum we’ve ever tried. (No, this is not a sponsored post.)

Using a daily calendar in place of an art appreciation curriculum means

• no lesson planning,
• no agonizing over which artist to introduce next,
• no browsing websites to download images, and
• no using up expensive printer ink.

In fact, using a daily calendar for art appreciation is a far more well-rounded approach than if I were to design my own introduction to famous art course. Why? Because the calendar offers a wider variety of genres and artwork than I’d choose myself! (The variety includes photographs of artifacts as well as paintings.)

You can even dive a little more in depth with these helpful printable questions kids can ask when looking at art.

Each page of the art appreciation calendar is double-sided,  7″ wide and 6″ tall, and includes details about the artwork displayed. Since it’s important for kids to be able to interact with masterpieces in a tactile way — rather than growing up thinking of art as a strictly “don’t touch!” arena — let kids use the discarded pages for notecards and thank you letters, collages or other art projects. Want to save your family favorites? Place them in mini sheet protectors to make mini art binders kids can look through again and again. 

Get your own art calendar here.

How do you approach art appreciation in your homeschool?