As a summer daily project I started doing themed mini-lessons with Gage. We read a book about a particular subject and then he draws a picture from the book. This, of course, serves two purposes and both have worked very well. We hang up each day’s picture in the kitchen until the end of the week when we take them all down and put them in a folder with labels. He is so proud of this book of his art and it’s nice to see the growth of his artistic abilities.
My favorite so far was the week and a half we spent reading about artists. I checked out the picture books about painters at the library and found seven that worked. 
The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau by Michelle Markel. Mary Cassatt by Mike Venezia. An Eye for Color: The Story of Joseph Albers by Natasha Wing. Monet Paints a Day by Julie Danneberg. The Yellow House: Vincent van Gogh & Paul Gauguin Side by Side by Susan Goldman Rubin. The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinksy’s Abstract Art by Barb Rosenstock. Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe.
Both The Noisy Paint Box and Radiant Child are Caldecott books and deservedly so. They were my favorites, along with An Eye for Color.
If you follow me on Facebook you saw what happened at the end of the week when I set him up with some paints and an easel.
He painted a portrait of me 🙂 I think playing with proportion might be his thing, lol.
As the grand finale I planned a trip with him to the Cleveland Museum of Art. I checked to see which artists we would find in the museum and then printed all 9 paintings and told him what room to find them. He had to find them on the museum map, only two rooms so it wasn’t hard, and then get us there and find the pieces. I knew he would just race around so I told him beforehand that I had to take his picture with each one. That slowed the racing only marginally.
We did walk around a bit after and he loved the video art. So much so that Friday after his camp at the Botanical Garden across the street he asked if we could go back and see it!
I’m feeling like our first art study was a success!
Other topics we’ve covered are feelings, Disney (the week before our trip to Disney), and jobs. Next time I’ll show you his art book 🙂
If you have any good ideas for good themes please share!
Stacy's Books 
You are such a great, creative mom! I adore the painting of you and seriously think it needs to be framed and hung in your home.
You could do animals or some kind of vehicles.
The painting is currently displayed on the piano 🙂 Maybe vehicles that are not trains 🙂
What a great idea! Yes, animals would be good, especially if there is a zoo nearby. Countries might be interesting and you could incorporate cooking a meal from that country. You’re gonna have a fun summer!
Continents would be good! I tried to do states last summer but there were too many an it go too hard to differentiate between them. Animals, of course, is always fun with kids (and me too!).
You are so good! I had wanted to do something like this with Mouse this summer, but so far haven’t kept up. I keep telling myself she’s busy doing themed projects at the summer program and she doesn’t need to do that at home too, but I feel like I’m falling down on my job as her parent. Getting her to journal every day is hard enough. She fights me and I don’t always have the energy after a long day of work to push it. Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know. The best laid plans.
I hope you have a great week, Stacy. Happy Independence Day!
Well, if she’s already doind it during the day then she probably wouldn’t be as into it a second time. Gage is only doing 4 weeks of camp this summer and 3 of those are only 3 hours so we have more time at home. I haven’t even started the fight on journaling. We are still majorly struggling with reading so getting that in everyday is my daily, exhausting fight.
Happy 4th, Wendy!