Honestly, I’m not awesome at painting or sculpting or drawing. And the idea of trying to teach those skills to my kids was downright intimidating to me, which caused me to put it off over and over again.

My kids, though, were excited to learn to draw, paint, sculpt, and everything else. And I didn’t want to keep holding them back just because I was unsure about how to get them started.

That’s why I was so thrilled to get the opportunity to try the easy art lessons for kids from Sparketh! These totally online art courses offer complete video instructions for kids and teens (and anyone else really) and you don’t need any artistic experience at all to use it with your kids!

Read on to see how Sparketh Online Art Lessons can make it easy for even non-artistic parents – like me – to teach art at home!

Disclosure: I received access to this program in exchange for this post and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.

How Sparketh’s Easy Art Lessons for Kids Work

Sparketh was launched in July 2015 with online art courses. Since then, the course offerings have expanded to include tens of different lessons, including drawing and painting, in varying degrees of difficulty.

You can choose from Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. Since we were using the program with our eight-year-old, we chose from the Beginner category. But I’m glad that he can move on to more advanced courses as his skills improve. That way, you don’t really “age out” of the curriculum.

One of the featured courses was the “Draw A Tree Frog” course. My guy is all about animals, so this was a natural fit for him.

Since we are raising kids with attention span issues, I was concerned about my son’s ability to stay interested and engaged throughout an entire course. So it was a pleasant surprise to see that many of the courses are fairly short – 30 minutes or less.

Even better, Sparketh Online Art Lessons are separated into several videos, which makes it easy to stop and start the course as needed. I also loved that the specific supplies were listed upfront, so I could browse for a class that used materials I already knew we had at home.

Using Sparketh’s Easy Art Lessons for Kids to Learn to Draw

Our eight-year-old has been wanting to learn to draw for the longest. He practices drawing things on his own, but he’s been wanting more structured lessons.

Since his auditory processing skills are not as well developed as his visual processing skills, having an online art video lesson that he could pause, rewind, and resume as needed was a wonderful help. Any time he was uncertain about what to do, he could just go back, watch it again, and gain more confidence.

As he learned in the course, the best way to begin a drawing is by sketching lightly.

Then you outline the finished sketch in ink pen and erase any unnecessary pencil marks.

Then – and only then – it’s time to add color. That was a critical step he’d been missing. Doing the foundation work early on helped him create a project he was proud of before finalizing it.

He really enjoyed using several different marker colors to make his tree frog look as realistic as possible.

I thought it was fantastic that Sparketh Online Art Lessons actually show the entire process of creating the work from start to finish. It made the lesson much more accessible for newbies. Going in, my son already felt that he could do the work right along with the artist.

Finally, he added a few finishing touches.

And that’s it!

(He styled the above photograph himself, complete with some of the artist’s tools he used.)

He was so proud of his work!

This is definitely going on the wall. And it was his very first lesson! I’m looking forward to seeing how much he progresses as he works through the different Sparketh Online Art Lessons.

Ready to try out Sparketh with your kids? Sign up for a free one-month trial to get your children started with easy art lessons for kids (and their not-so-artistic parents)!

Want to learn more about Sparketh? Follow the company on social media for news and updates about new courses, offers, and more!

• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Instagram

And for more ways to add art into your homeschool, follow my Art Ideas for Kids board on Pinterest!

The post Easy Art Lessons for Kids with Sparketh appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

Unfortunately, it’s late summer in Georgia, which means we’re not going to have autumn-colored leaves for some time. But we got out some paint, including fall-themed colors, and started up anyway!

Take a look at our easy nature art project: leaf painting for kids!

Want some more fall activities for kids? Try our fall snow globe craft or use our leaf identification flashcards to go on a leaf hunt! And don’t miss our All About Leaves printable pack for more leaf learning!

Easy Nature Art: Leaf Painting for Kids

To do this activity, you will need the following: (Affiliate links provided here for convenience. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• drawing paper
• acrylic paint
• an assortment of leaves (try to get ones that are large enough for your kids’ hands)

Just a quick note: This was the kids’ first time working with acrylic paint, so they were kind of surprised by how it moves on the paper. If your kids like tons of paint, definitely try tempera paint instead.

I asked everyone what colors they wanted to work with and we got started!

We put down two pieces of drawing paper – one as the “canvas” and another as the splat mat, plus paint palette. I just squeezed a bit of each color on the side.

This whole activity took maybe 15 minutes, but it was such a neat way to try art while using nature!

After we painted for a while, we started experimenting with printing.

And that was even easier, since all you have to do is spread enough paint on the bottom of your leaves and then press them down.

Lift them up slowly and you get a lovely leaf print!

Have even more leaf fun this fall with these posts!

Follow my Fall Activities for Kids board on Pinterest for even more fall ideas!

And get more fun learning ideas and crafts for kids when you sign up for our email newsletter! Subscribe using the widget below.

This post is part of Paint-A-Thon 2016 – a collection of more than 200 painting ideas for kids! Stop by to get tons of art inspiration for your kids!

The post Easy Nature Art: Leaf Painting for Kids appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

If you’re searching for homeschool art and music curriculum, check out these five options to add both subjects to your weekly lessons!

This post contains affiliate links, which help to support this site. Thank you!

Homeschool Art and Music Curriculum Suggestions

Chalk Pastels: Art at the Beach – Tricia Hodges

We just got into using chalk pastels with our kids and we really enjoyed working with them! The kids got to use their hands to make art and Tricia’s instructions are very easy to follow, which makes it a perfect option for art newbies! In Art at the Beach, Tricia explains how to make sandscapes, beach umbrellas, and even ocean animals!

A Seasonal Start in Fall Chalk Pastels – Tricia Hodges

Now that we’re coming up on fall, we’ll be breaking out the fall art projects. In A Seasonal Start in Fall, Tricia demonstrates how to use chalk pastels to draw fall scenes such as pumpkin patches, and owls in trees.

Elementary Art Color Theory Pack – Heather Aliano

This pack is a very relaxed introduction to color theory for kids. It features practice activities to help kids learn about color hues, mixing, and color wheels. It even includes vocabulary words to help students learn about “warm” and “cool” hues, as well as “contrast”, “primary”, and “secondary” colors!

SQUILT Volume 2: Classical Era – Mary Prather

SQUILT stands for “Super Quiet UnInterrupted Listening Time” and it’s an elementary-level course for classical music appreciation. In Volume 2, Mary focuses on composers of the Classical Era (1750-1820) and offers an education in musical terminology such as: repertoire, tempo, dynamics, and instrumentation. Kids also get to learn about musical instrument families and works by Haydn, Mozart, and others.

We Got Jazz – Look! We’re Learning!

Our own We Got Jazz! is great for introducing the world of jazz to kids. Students learn about five famous jazz artists – their lives, careers, and famous works. They also get to explore their own feelings about selected pieces through listening activities.

The post 5 Homeschool Art and Music Curriculum Choices appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.