When my sister generously offered to lend us her kids’ Master Kitz “The Starry Night” set, I seized the opportunity to have a week with Vincent Van Gogh. The visual arts are an important part of the Core Knowledge’s curriculum, which outlines how and what “core knowledge” should be taught year-by-year. I refer to it from time to time to see what else to include in our homeschooling.
Come take a peek at how we got to know Vincent Van Gogh in one week.
“The Yellow House”
A search for a related book in our bookshop’s stocks yielded nothing, but it turned out that my friend Sanne has a personal copy of “The Yellow House.” Authored by Susan Goldman Rubin, the book tells the story of the time that Van Gogh spent living and painting with fellow artist Paul Gaugin in his yellow house in Arles, France.
What We Learned
From the story, we learned about the different ways that artists work. We got acquainted too with some of Van Gogh’s and Gaugin’s paintings through the reproductions in the book. We compared their work with each other – Van Gogh, during the time depicted in the book mostly used warm colors while Gaugin used cool colors.
One scene in the book particularly captured Little T’s attention: Van Gogh and Gaugin used the same model but came up with very different paintings as Gaugin added elements from his imagination.
Van Gogh Card Game
Our week with Van Gogh was really cheap and we didn’t spend much except for the water color paper that we bought. I saw in my sister’s house a Van Gogh Card Game that she bought from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and shamelessly borrowed it for our lessons.
What We Learned
The card game features most of Van Gogh’s paintings, and are grouped into “families:” portraits, self-portraits, landscapes, trees, animals, water, and peasant life. The objective of the game is to ask each other for paintings, by name, until you complete a “family.” This proved to be very fun and Little T kept asking to play it. It definitely helped us to intimately know a lot of Van Gogh’s work.
MasterKitz’s “The Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh
The MasterKitz set contains everything that you need to make your own version of an artist’s work. Though there are step-by-step instructions, the kit still leaves room for a young artist’s imagination.
“The Starry Night” box, which acts as a toolbox, contains three paint colors, custom Van Gogh roller, oil pastels, composition stencil, sponge roller, Van Gogh learning materials, and 16×20 paper (which we had to buy because my niece and nephew already used it).
What We Learned
We loved the accompanying materials about Van Gogh, which tells his story and describes his artistic style. With the simple tools, Little T was able to make her own interpretation of “The Starry Night” (first picture in this post) and made Van Gogh more real.
I learned something myself during our week with Van Gogh. It was to let go of “what should be” and trust my child with what I have tasked her to do. I really had to stop myself, several times, from saying, “no, you shouldn’t use the oil pastel like a crayon.” First is because I really don’t know how you should use an oil pastel (haha!), and second is because art is something personal, even if you’re just a 5-year-old learning about Van Gogh for the first time.
Van Gogh and the Sunflowers iPad App
I have written several times about my aversion to screen time for my children, especially for two-year-old Little Sir. It used to be an area of contention but my husband has learned to offer apps that are only related to what we are studying. Yes, I am strict.
What We Learned
For our week with Van Gogh, he downloaded “Van Gogh and the Sunflowers,” a simple interactive story about Van Gogh and one of his favorite subjects, the sunflower. This app also features ten paintings with detailed descriptions and side stories. We encountered these paintings in the card game, making Little T gasp every time she picks a card.
Lastly, we learned another way to say Van Gogh’s name other than the version that we know which is Van “Go.” We’re now practicing how to say Van “Goff” as said by the narrator in the app. It’s quite difficult to get used to so I’ll stick with Go Van Go anytime. 🙂
So there you have our first week-long introduction to one of the great masters of art! We are continuing our exploration by doing another Vincent Van Gogh Master Kitz set – Sunflowers. And it is still thanks to my sister and her amazing arsenal of learning tools!
