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Becky Parker
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| Posted: April 29 2011 at 6:45am | IP Logged
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Can anyone compare CHC's art programs, Learning to Appreciate Art and the Christian Heritage Art Program?
I'm really looking for something easy to use for art appreciation. My kids might be taking an art class next year so I'm not so worried about the "arts and crafts" end of it.
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Becky
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time4tea
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| Posted: May 03 2011 at 2:11pm | IP Logged
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Becky,
I saw the Learning to Appreciate Art materials years ago, when they used to be included with the 4th grade lesson plans, and it looked like a nice program. It comes complete with all of the art cards, and is a general art appreciation course for elementary ages. I actually thought it looked really good. It did not seem like the lessons were lengthy, but it did seem to have some real "meat" to it. I am actually thinking of purchasing it for the fall, I just don't want to bite of more than I can chew with "electives" next year, which was a huge problem for us this year! I have never seen the Christian Heritage Art program, so I cannot offer any review of that.
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ekbell
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| Posted: May 03 2011 at 5:28pm | IP Logged
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I find that the nicest thing about the CHC art appreciation (as well as Setons art appreciation) is that it's something that my children can read by themselves. I've found that we're not particularly good at keeping up with formal art lessons but between picking curricula with picture lessons (art literature readers, primary language lessons and the like) and having plenty of art books around we've managed to pick up a fair amount.
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stellamaris
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| Posted: May 04 2011 at 3:48am | IP Logged
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The Christian Heritage Program is much more extensive. It is a series of 8 DVD's that present different art works/styles in an entertaining manner, each video section is about 15 minutes (haven't done this for a while, so I hope that's close to right  ) and is correlated with an art project. The art projects are very good and are more than just basic coloring, but involve usually several steps and processes. One problem with this program for me is that the instructions for the teacher are all on the DVD, so you have to print them out first and they are LONG. I would find it a lot easier to work with a book, especially since many of the projects require materials that you might not have just lying around (not so much expensive as just not handy...e.g., a spray bottle to use with paint for the first project). On the other hand, the program does have a ton of material for 1-8 grade, is Catholic, and is very extensive. It covers art history well, and so you could use sections of it to supplement a history program. It is also geared to classroom instruction, with each DVD correlated to a grade level, fyi.
The CHC Art program that we used was more a gentle, basic introduction to art appreciation. It really didn't have art "projects" per se, but it did encourage some drawing. It seemed that it focused on looking at paintings and identifying compositional features, styles, etc. It only has enough material for about 1 year (at the most...I think we covered it in 1/2 year easily) of lessons. I enjoyed doing this program. It is very basic and very gentle, and you end up with a nice notebook when you are finished. It's focus is Western European art from about 1500-1900 (I can't even remember now if there are any medieval pieces in it???).
These two programs are very different; you could easily start with CHC with younger children and later move on to Christian Heritage. Think "picture study" for CHC and "traditional art class in school" for Christian Heritage and that will give you an idea of how they compare.
I'd like to add in here a program we have been using and enjoying this year. It is called "Meet the Masters" and we subscribed to it via Homeschool Buyers' Coop. It was a change of pace for us, but it is very easy to use and interesting. Each module has a computer based presentation of the artist (you read the text and scroll through pictures on the computer, sometimes playig audio clips) and then, focusing on one aspect of their work, the student produces a pretty structured art piece. For example, we read about Hokusai, looked at his work including "The Great Wave", and then learned how to do Chinese brush painting pictures of bamboo. Or, we study Mondrian and balance and made our own works similar to "Boogie-Woogie Broadway" out of construction paper. It's very structured, but that was perfect for us this year.
So there's some info on art! 
ETA: Here's a link for Meet the Masters.
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Caroline
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: May 04 2011 at 7:20am | IP Logged
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Thanks everyone! In an effort to keep things simple yet still accomplish some art around here I had decided to go with the outside art class or use the Art Pacs CHC offers. I know Art Pacs are not elaborate by any means but I've tried elaborate programs and we just don't get to them. With Art Pacs I can pretty much have all the kids sit down and work on their projects while I just help where needed. The outside art class is really the ideal but gas prices may be limiting our "outside anything"!
It sounds like, because of the above, I really don't need the Christian Heritage program. That would be a bit too involved for our needs next year. I still like the looks of Learning to Appreciate Art though. It seems to be picture "study kicked up a notch" which is what I'm looking for.
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Becky
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: May 04 2011 at 7:26am | IP Logged
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ekbell wrote:
| I find that the nicest thing about the CHC art appreciation (as well as Setons art appreciation) is that it's something that my children can read by themselves. I've found that we're not particularly good at keeping up with formal art lessons |
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I hear ya!
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Becky
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cathhsmom
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| Posted: May 04 2011 at 10:00am | IP Logged
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Has anyone here used level 1 of the Christian Heritage Art Program? I'm trying to decide on ordering it for my incoming 1st grader who is artistically inclined but not good with fine motor skills. If you've used level one, can you tell me how difficult the projects are? Right now we're just working on coloring pages and staying in the lines.
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: CHC's Art programs
