Art for the Whole Family: A Review of Beyond the Stick Figure Art School

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

For the past several weeks our family has been working through the Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course PLUS 3 Bonus Courses together. These courses are offered by Beyond the Stick Figure Art School and can be by everyone in your household. It is designed to be used as a daily program for the homeschool year but we have been working on different parts in a quicker fashion as fits our needs and homeschool style. With over 60 lessons, we can incorporate art into almost every day of our homeschooling week.  

What is Beyond the Stick Figure Art School? 

Working on the premise that famous artists use techniques and skills that they have learned and practiced, your family will learn the very basics of drawing that they then can take with them into more artwork. The person behind Beyond the Stick Figure is Sally who is from England (so expect an English accent while you are learning your art!). She homeschools her children and wants to share her passion for art with other homeschooling families. 

What Are the Courses? 

There are four courses that we have access to for the review: 

• The Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course 
• The Complete Pen & Ink and Watercolor Course
• Introduction to Acrylic Course 
• Introduction to 3D Design Course 

The courses focus on techniques that you can use to develop your drawing skills using various materials. In the first drawing course, the short videos are sometimes accompanied with PDFs to download for drawing, tracing, and practice.

There is a list of materials that you will need to purchase before you begin creating your art that is now available before you start looking at any lessons. You can then view specific videos within the courses that show and discuss the necessary materials. (For example, Acrylic Part 2 Materials, you can view the video that shows the paintbrushes, paints, and other items you will need to create a beautiful brown and white lake scene.)

We had to pick and choose which supplies to purchase for the review of Beyond the Stick Figure courses. As our teenager was going to be working on the painting portion of the course with me, we spent the money we allocated to the course on those supplies. In the future, we will purchase the marker set but with the current state of things we were unable to purchase them. We also had to substitute a few other things (like picking a different color paint) due to being able to go to the craft stores and online supplies being limited. (Personally, I don't think using a different color for our watercolor painting was too detrimental.)

The picture was supposed to be drawn with a black fine point sharpie marker but I couldn't find ours anywhere in the house!

How are the courses set up? When you log into the site, you will see that you need to go through each lesson and watch the videos and then mark them as complete. You cannot skip ahead to the further courses (I went through and marked the courses as complete so we can do the different drawing and painting lessons. This was a bit time-consuming.)

Here you can see the parts of the course are listed to the left side of the screen.
There are a couple of ways to navigate once you have checked off courses as completed. 

But beyond getting the materials you need ready (purchasing or printing out documents) and have accessing to the lessons online, Beyond the Stick Figure Art School can be very easy for homeschooling parents. There is no need to write out lessons or spend time doing the teaching yourself. The instructions are provided in each video.

How Are We Using the Courses in Our Homeschool? 

Our younger children and I are working on the beginning Drawing Courses. There are three parts to the Drawing Course which focuses on the basics of drawing. Our children have been drawing straight lines, curved lines, circles, and dots. They then took those skills and worked on drawing abstract pictures and flowers.

I really like that the children work on 8 x 11.5 papers cut into fourths. It makes it a lot easier to provide them with page after page for drawing as well as being less intimidating, as is talked about in the lessons. (You aren't staring at a huge drawing page that you have to fill.)

For many of the beginning lessons, our children worked on mastering drawing lines and shapes.

There were also some parts in the early lessons of the Drawing course where children practiced dots, circles, straight lines, and curved lines. We printed out the pages for our younger son to complete included pages that examined primary and secondary colors.

I watched and completed the first Pen & Ink drawing myself. I plan on working on the second one from Part 2 but I need to purchase tracing paper prior to completing the tree scene. I also went through and watched the Introduction to Acrylic Course videos.

I am really looking forward to completing this painting. I just need the tracing paper!

I am looking forward to painting with acrylics. 

At the end of each course, there is a rubric that you can download so you can determine how well you think you did during the course. The rubric focuses upon self-reflection. So, if your children are younger, you may want to complete it with them.

Our teen and I sat down to complete the watercolor course together. As we did not have access to the recommended gray color paint, we each choose a different color to create our small painting. I think I will have fun practicing this painting more and more to get the technique and details to my liking.

What Are We Looking Forward To?

Our teen son and I are looking forward to working with acrylics. This part of the course is in three parts. We have about half of the supplies we need but with the current state of affairs, it has been difficult to get all the materials suggested or needed. I have gone through and watched them. I can't wait till I can start to practice painting a lovely sky, a mountain scene using brown and white, and another lovely countryside scene.

The final course, which we have not started, is on 3D Design. There are three parts to this course. I think our children will enjoy working on this part as they will get to create an animal.

There are a few things that I feel could make the online courses even better that mostly deal with navigation. I wish that the lessons were labeled with more detail. As in Watercolor Part 1, Day 9: Foreground. It would make it easier to navigate back to lessons when taking a break. And while I understand the skills taught in the courses are meant to build upon each other but it is difficult when one child wants to work on art while another is more interesting in painting. We had to go through and click complete on parts of the courses we actually had not finished yet. Perhaps each course could be individual rather than be grouped together.   

The lessons are full of some great advice – including a video just for moms (or dads) that encourages us as parents to not crush the spirit of our children when they are going through the lessons. Another piece of advice I enjoyed hearing was that of not squeezing the paintbrushes in the paper towel. Never thought anything of doing that till watching the videos at Beyond the Stick Figure. I really think everything is presented in a very clear manner to help those who are not used to drawing or working with the different types of paint or clay used in the courses. If you are looking for a beginners course to help you or your children get started as artists, Beyond the Stick Figure Art School will be a great resource for your homeschool.

Do You Want to Learn More?

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There were many families who had the chance to review the Beyond the Stick Figure Art School courses. Be sure to check out the Homeschool Review Crew reviews!

A Quest for a Great Homeschool Year: Electives in our 2019-2020 Homeschool Year

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What is an elective? In high school, electives are often those considered outside of the main course of study (English, math, history, science, and foreign language). Electives can be those chosen by the high school student that relate to their interest like choir or playing an instrument for fun, improving a skill, related to a future career, or even something along the lines of economics or study of laws and government.

Examples of electives include:

• Study of World Culture 
• Church History 
• Marketing
• Accounting 
• Creative Writing 
• Public Speaking 
• Graphic Design 
• Drawing 
• Home Economics
• Debate 
• And more

In one's homeschool, there are so many options and ideas that it might even seem overwhelming. After all, if our children are involved in the day-to-day tasks of helping to keep, manage, and run the home, they will be learning about cooking, budgeting, and more just through daily interactions. As the very classes that students need to become successful homeowners are often those that school districts cut first (home economics courses like sewing and cooking or woodworking), that makes homeschooling and incorporating electives all the more important. 

Electives are where we get to have a lot of fun in picking courses, resources, and materials. With our oldest son's goal to become a photographer, we are able to select from a variety of courses through SchoolhouseTeachers.com that allows him to build the skill set he needs to accomplish this goal.

High School

Photography 

Our teen has shown a keen interest in starting his own photography business so why not take the time to learn the basics of photography during his homeschool year? The online Photography class at SchoolhouseTeachers.com covers the functions of a camera, composition, and elements of design. It also provides the opportunity to take photographs that fit the week's themes over 30 weeks.

There is also a Photography Challenge course that our son can take if he so chooses that has the child take one or more photographs based upon the weekly challenge topic. Some of these topics include:

• School
• Winter
• Hobby
• Textures
• Landscapes
• And more

Elementary

At the elementary level, electives are not necessarily seen as something separate. In a public school setting, children are still introduced to art and music on a somewhat regular basis. While homeschooling, younger children have a lot of time to explore topics that interest them. Perhaps they wish to learn how to play the piano or they are involved in Sunday School that puts on plays at church.

Both our younger children enjoy arts and crafts and we have studied several artists in the past when learning about different art styles. We used Learning About Art from SchoolhouseTeachers.com which introduced our children to different artists like John James Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, and Grant Wood and different techniques for drawing simple pictures. They also studied more techniques and learned how to use different mediums like water color crayons, pastels, and clay with ARTistic Pursuits' Art for Children: Building a Visual Vocabulary and Art of the Ancients.

How do you incorporate electives into your homeschool? 

Not Back to School Blog Hop 

This week I am joining up with the Homeschool Review Crew for the Annual "Not Back to School" Blog Hop...5 Days of Homeschool.... Please visit the other members to see what they are sharing this week.

An All-in-One Curriculum: A SchoolhouseTeachers.com Yearly Membership Review

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Sensory Activity from Small World Sensory Science

A Yearly Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com provides homeschooling families with over 300 courses, PK through 12th grade, "grounded in a Biblical worldview." My family is very excited to be able to review the Yearly Membership, in particular the preschool classes, from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. Parents and children can pick from subjects such as art, foreign languages, mathematics, history, and science to name just a few. Once you have reviewed the courses and made your selection, you can use their schedule builder to prepare for the year.  There are no textbooks to buy; you can download all the course PDF files or queue the videos to screen and start learning at your own pace.

Besides having quite helpful tabs that allow one to browse by grade and subject, there is also a course directory that breaks down every course by subject for easy comparison.

Our youngest children (aged 2 and 4) are those that we are planning to homeschool but I also love that I am able to access materials for our high school son to review with him as needed.  And since he is attending a public school, we can provide him access to a variety of Bible courses to complement his secular education.

I have been able to include lessons from several Preschool classes (Small World Sensory Science, ABC: What Will I Be?, Schoolhouse Spelling, and Preschool Playground: Numbers, Patterns, and Cognitive Skills) in our daily activities as well as examine the Preschool Playground part of SchoolhouseTeachers.com.

Preschool Playground provides resources for studying the Bible; Language Arts; Numbers, Patterns, and Cognitive Skills; Manners and Healthy Habits; Arts, Crafts, and Music; Science; Social Studies; and Multi-Subjects resources such as Getting Around videos on the World Book Early World of Learning site and a World eBook Tough Trucks.  The Getting Started page provides information for parents on how to set up binders to store and organize your lessons and ideas for homeschooling your preschooler.  As a former teacher, I am very pleased to see that they are recommending a very similar set up to the one I used while I was teaching high school. That is, keep a master parent binder separated by topic and a child binder with the child's daily work (changed each day as your child completes the work).

There is a Scope and Sequence document which provides you with the age appropriate objectives for your preschooler.  I find this to be valuable because it helps one see how each subject is really connected.  For example, learning shapes falls under language arts and arts and crafts.  It can also be applied to discussing patterns with your preschooler. When your child has completed the work you have chosen for them, there are colorful certificates of achievement you can print for writing the letters of the alphabet and counting all the way to 10, among others.

There are also articles for parents to help encourage you on your journey to homeschool your preschooler. In “Preschool Education” by Juliebeth Lamb, tips are provided for organizing your home and setting a schedule. Donna Conner writes about “Preschooling with One” and offers this piece of great advice: “I think I wouldn’t be as concerned with messes.  They’re only messes, and your child is only that age once in his life – once in your life!”

In World Book: Early World of Learning, there are a number of activities for younger children to complete (both online and offline).  For example, there are series of Print and Do Activities that can be used as part of Preschool Playground.  There are matching pages, color by number, and location worksheets as well as activities for shapes, sizes, and time -- to name a few. There are also videos to view with your youngster.  My only complaint is that the videos are extremely short (some only 15 seconds).  As soon as the video starts, it is over (which my four-year-old doesn’t really like). 

In 2017, my preschooler and I started using the lessons in ABC: What Will I Be?  We completed B is for Baker and recently completed our study of C is for Construction Worker. Each letter in the course focuses upon different jobs and includes book suggestions and a series of five activities for the week.  For C is for Construction Worker, activities including building a skyscraper, acting out the work completed by equipment (for example, spin like a cement mixer), and working on writing the letter C.  Both my four-year-old and my two-year-old thoroughly enjoyed the activities and I love being able to have things that both can do together. 

Beyond being able to use World Book with younger children, it also provides a number of other excellent resources.  While I have been writing a history curriculum for SchoolhouseTeachers.com, I have used the World Book Advanced to provide future students with articles to read on the United States and its history, such as biographies of presidents and leading citizens.

There is also a World Book Kids that provides many resources including such science lessons as "Do plants like salt?" where children will test out if plants can survive with or without salt.  The lesson includes materials needed, procedures and discussion, and links to online articles explaining topics in the experiment.

And if your family really enjoys eBooks, there is a great selection of educational ones as well as classic stories like J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and non-fiction such as Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. For younger children studying animals, there is a series of Animal Lives and Animals of the World eBooks.  Those interested in mythology, legends, and folklore will find tales from places like Ancient Greece, the early Americas, and Ancient Egypt, among others.

There are so many great resources to SchoolhouseTeachers.com.  Part of the video collection available for members are the following Drive Thru History videos: American History and Ancient History. Accompanying the videos are worksheets that your child can answer during the viewing or afterwards for a review.  We have started watching these together as a family. As a student of history, I always enjoy videos best where the presenter's interest in the topic is evident and Dave Stotts' enjoyment of the subject matter is evident. 

Please be sure to take a look at other reviews for SchoolhouseTeachers.com.  There are many wonderful aspects to the site for the entire family.  I am looking forward to continuing to use SchoolhouseTeachers.com for my family's homeschooling needs as well as checking out some of the other resources I have recently discovered like the Monthly Menu (I am always on the look out for new dinner ideas for my picky eaters.).

 Join SchoolhouseTeachers.com today!

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Please be sure to visit the rest of the crew's reviews!