ArtAchieve a Homeschool Crew Review

ArtAchieve  is a favorite word in my children’s vocabulary the last few weeks!  My family has been thrilled doing art the last several weeks. I was given a year access to the Entire Level II.  You may remember last school year my family reviewed Entire Level I.

ArtAchieve is an online art class for kids with the philosophy that anyone can learn how to create masterpieces with drawing and painting. ArtAchieve has made me a believer in that philosophy.  

The art lessons are inspired with art around the globe and its culture. Each of the lessons is based off an object from anything to pottery, a toy, and even jewelry of a particular culture. Since the art is based off of objects around the world it just makes sense that this unique mixture of art will let you explore the geography, science, history, literature, and so much more of each art creation with the Cross Curricular Connections. You will have a list online to do a unit study out of each art lesson with links and resources to make this into a unit study. Your student will be introduced to many techniques to finish your art project.

The creator of ArtAchieve is John Hofland a former homeschool father. He has taught art in both elementary and middle school art and also language arts. He has done workshops for teachers at universities- this was the beginning of ArtAchieve.

John Hofland’s main focus is drawing. I like that the art supplies are basic in to the Entire Level II. You basically need drawing pencils, paper, watercolors, colored pencils, and black marker for the majority of the lessons. Yet, at the same time you can use other mediums in your project if you choose to do so.  

There are five levels available, you can choose to purchase single lessons, small bundles of three lessons, a value bundle that includes an entire level of lessons, or the entire curriculum. You will have an entire year to do the lessons. You can do some of the free lessons before you buy. 

ArtAchieve is suggested for ages 7 and up. But it also says that regardless of age, you should start with the simplest lessons and work your way through the lessons.

Getting started was simple!  I logged into the ArtAchieve website. All of the lessons in our level were listed there. There’s a handy supplies list  for each lessons. 

There are two ways to do the lesson with either a PowerPoint Version or a Video Version. My kids preferred the PowerPoint Version. They didn’t have to keep hitting the pause button during the video. They like the ease and don’t feel rushed being able to hit the slide button when you’re ready to go to the next step. The average video lesson is around 30 minutes.

ArtAchieve has five different levels with varying skill levels. I am going to focus only on Entire Level II. There are 14 lessons in all.

The projects are:

The Swedish Dala Horse

The Korean Wedding Duck

The Japanese Goldfish

The Elephant from Ghana

The Ukrainian Cat

The German Nutcracker

The Sri Lankan Landscape with an Elephant

Tessellations: Repeating a Pattern to Create Original Art

The Ukrainian Rooster

Hiding Butterflies

The Mexican Mask

The Russian Fortress

The Polish Szopka

The Mermaid from Denmark

How Did I use ArtAchieve in my Homeschool?

I already knew that my kids ages 11 and 14 preferred the PowerPoint lessons from last time we did ArtAchieve and we did all the lessons using this format. 

I printed out the warm-up sheets and got the supplies ready prior to each lesson. One of the recommendations is to have music in the back ground. My kids preferred to work on their art lessons without any music. Mr. Hofland also recommends a hand warm-up exercise which is rubbing your hands together.

The lessons begin with showing the object that they will be drawing and then giving an overview of some of the history or facts about it. 

The project is taught in a step by step format in which you complete a stroke on each slide. It shows you a focal point of where to start off each stroke. My kids like the ease of drawings with each step being broken down this way. On both the Video and Power Point each new stroke is shown with a red line around the already completed strokes. My kids felt successful in their projects with the ease of the step by step of the lessons.

After you complete your drawing you are given some examples about of how to finish it by adding color and different types of designs to decorate it. They also show several samples of finished projects other students have done.

We did a lesson a week. One day the kids would draw the project and another day doing the final touches and adding the medium to the masterpiece. Overall each week we would spend around an hour on the lessons.

I planned on doing the Cross Curricular Connections activities but, we had two family deaths and my mother-in-law had a heart attack that has keep us on the go a lot in the last month. We still plan on continuing with ArtAchieve and doing the Cross Curricular Connections activities in the future like we did in our previous review. This made me even more grateful for the ease of ArtAchieve and my kids being able to do something fun during the last few stressful weeks.

One lesson that I know my daughter will like is the Hiding Butterflies in which I will give you an overview of what the Cross Curricular Connections looks like. For Social Studies you are going to learn why the Early American colonist gave the monarch butterfly its name. Then it’s going to go into science and learn about the migratory habits of the monarch. There are links, book, and a butterfly garden link. Next activity is that you get to take a field trip to an online butterfly museum. Another science project is learning about camouflaged with links to videos and other resources. For literature there are some recommended books. What I like the most about the Cross Curricular Connections activities is that each lesson is unique for each project.

I love that I don’t have to have any artistic ability for this and I don’t have to teach it! I love the step-by-step instruction. You just feel so good about the completed projects with the layout of the program.

I highly recommend ArtAchieve whether you are like me and have no artistic ability or even if you are gifted in art. This is an amazing homeschool art program.

Other members of the Homeschool Crew Review team have been working on other levels so stop by their blogs and see what projects they have completed.

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