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Haha! So, is there a place for "start with an oval?" What other methods have you seen and what types of situations did they work in?

I never meant to start scribing, but it seemed pretty natural to illustrate little books for him when he asked me to, and draw diagrammes to explain things (like, D'uh)... and the next thing I knew I realized he wasn't drawing at all, just asking me to draw things, wasn't building with legos, just telling me where to put stuff (That started from "here, take this appart," and "it won't stick") UGGGGGGGGG. So I don't want to stop drawing diagrams, or taking appart stuck legos, but, yeah, it's gotten utterly out of hand, and we've been reeling it back in rather tortuously. It's really not a problem, just a dumb parental goof.

My kid seems to have a lot in common with aspie kids to be a kid who is "definitly" not on the spectrum. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I think he's really not.

Ok, thoughts, back inside the skull now, recess is over.

Well, my DD is also like an "anti-aspie" who also has a very large amount of commonality with ASD people, too.
So I know what you mean. I think.


I definitely have seen "start with an oval" go into very good places that use children's imaginative skills as artists. "What could your oval be?" and "Can you picture (what the child asked to draw) in your oval? What else do you think that it needs?"

I've also seen it go in bad places... "No, that's really more of a squashed egg that looks like a rectangle..." or "Um, well, that's a great lake, but we are drawing a flying saucer with our ovals today..."

It just sort of depends on the circumstances.

I would suggest Ed Emberly books for little kids who can draw with simple shapes.

You could get Emberly themed books like halloween for inspiration and leave that on the kitchen island with some pencils and markers. You could do bubble letters - happy halloween on a long roll of paper and then add picture ideas from his books.

We do these banners for birthdays, seasons, ect. then hang it up.

Here's another idea. Get a piece of burlap and some supplies like embrodery thread, plastic needle, buttons, feathers, shells, whatever. Start gluing and weaving in pieces an see if your child wants to do some. This is the type of creative project that we like, it's very open ended.

Putting together a set of recyclable for construction is great. As you get cool packaging, talk about what's interesting to you. Do you like the color? What could we make from this? Soon your child will come up to you and say let's save this for the construction box. This very open ended too.

Hey, you guys, I'm talkin' about theory, here. I'm not short on ideas for projects, or source material, and I'm not looking for more open ended things to do.

My DS does not appear to respond well to open ended art experiences, and this challanges my assumptions. I'm interested in discussing those assumptions, and thinking about how to guess what types of teaching are best for whom.

oy.

HowlerKarma: I get where you're comming from, but that brings it back to the kind of art instruction *I* like... but that DS doesn't seem to do well on. When he's finished something (which is rare) we often discuss what it is, he is usually only willing to attribute fixed subject matter to MY stuff, not HIS. But his stuff can take on meaning for limited periods of time. A couple of days ago, he told me a particular pic was a triceratops, "but just untill tomorrow," and he really did decide it was something different the next day. He's also establishing a list of things he can draw, which is real wierd at his age. It includes elephants, which are quite recognisable, though impressionistic, always facing left, and which I never taught him to draw-by-numbers, and train tracks, which I did teach him to draw-by-numbers.

-Mich
(sorry, guys, I'm just easily frustrated)

The things I used in Art when homeschooling were...

Monart: Drawing with Children

Programs such as Meet the Masters (Art history and producing art based on a example from a Master artist) http://www.meetthemasters.com/

and then just integrating studying art along with history.

Our most successful projects would have been more multimedia projects like when studying Muslim Mosaics to make a mosaic with construction paper.