TOS Review: Global Art from Gryphon House Publishers

For the last few weeks we have been reviewing a book called Global Art from Gryphon House publishers.  

Global Art is a collection of over 100 art projects for students in grades K-5.  Global Art features 'activities, projects, and inventions from around the world.'

The book is broken down into 7 different chapters-one for each continent of the world.  For each continent, there are anywhere between 8 and 40 activities to help students learn about the continent and it's peoples and cultures while at the same time doing art.  For each of the art lessons, there is a 'did you know?' section that explains further about the project you will be doing.

For example, there is an art project that explains how to make a Tangram design game.  The 'did you know?' explains that the game came from china and is usually made of wood.  Apparently many people immigrating from China brought the game with them and the popularity of the game spread.

Here is a look at the art project we chose to do today.  Each project has a key up at the top of the page that tells three things.  The first box shows what kind of project it is-painting, drawing, sculpture, collage, construction, and printing.  Box number 2 tells us how much preparation it takes on a scale of 1-3.  I didn't have a lot of prep time today, so I needed a 1.  The last box lets you know how hard the project is, again on a scale of 1-3.  I like the 1 lessons because Mini Cooper (3) and Explorer (1) can often join in even though they are below the suggested age of 5.

The instructions on how to make our Hands Across America Paper Dolls were pretty easy-which is good because I thought I knew how to do it and ended up with a bunch of individual dolls!  We used our gingerbread man cookie cutter to help.

Everyone had a lot of fun coloring their people-we made a chain for each kid.

Mustang cut hers out herself.

Explorer was so pleased to be able to play too!

Thanks to the explanation of the 'melting pot' of the world, we talked about what an immigrant is and why the US is a melting pot.  We talked about where each of us, and each of our grandparents, aunts and uncles were born.  We have an aunt from Panama, an uncle from Laos, and uncle from Iceland, a grandpa from Germany, a cousin from China, many cousins who are Native American, and an aunt and uncle born in Canada.  So, we have quite the little 'melting pot' just in our own family.

The art projects use all kinds of different materials for the activities.  Some we had and some we didn't.  One thing I noticed was that the authors liked to re-purpose things from around the house.  One project used old tin can lids, another used old laundry soap containers, and another one used an old oatmeal container.  For some reason, Mustang really likes to re-purpose things, so I am glad to have some direction for how she can use these items.  She is an artist, maybe it's normal for an artist to re-purpose?  I only see it as trash, so I was impressed by the creativity of the authors for how to use the items!

I was also impressed by the amount of information I learned just by thumbing through the book!  Over the next year, we will be trying to work much harder on our continent studies, and I love how this Global Art book will work in with them.

Another thing I liked about this book is that it is truly ART and not a bunch of crafts.  The authors gave clear instructions on how to recreate something from another culture to teach us about that culture, while at the same time learning how to work with different art mediums to create masterpieces.

I am not really much of an art kinda girl, but Mustang is and she is very happy with this new book!!  I know she is looking forward to doing a lot more from Global Art this school year.

Global Art is written by MaryAnn F Kohl, who has authored 14 other books, most of them about art.  It is also written by Jean Potter who was the Deputy Assistant and Assistant Secretary of Education under Pres. Reagan.  You can read more about both authors and about the book by checking out the Global Art product page on the Gryphon House website.

Global Art has won many awards including the Benjamin Franklin Award, National Parenting Publications Award and Parent's Guide to Children's Media Award.  Global Art is designed for individual or group setting art lessons and has an affordable price of just $16.95.

We really enjoyed the book and look forward to trying out all 135 lessons at some point.  You can read what other crew members had to say by checking out the crew blog.

Thanks for stopping by!
God Bless,
Lisa