Gryphon House Review

I was given the pleasure to try out an Art book by Gryphon House called Global Art.  This book is priced at $16.95.  The book is a mix of all different genres of art including; painting, drawing, collages, sculptures, and etc.  Global Art has each project based on a geographical and cultural background.

This was a really fun book.  It fits in really well with most Social Studies units that go over cultures and other geographical areas around.  We were able to learn about a culture and implement an art project into that Social Studies lesson.  I think this makes the learning more fun for my kids since they think they are just doing art when in reality they are doing a type of art that the people in the culture we were studying about did.

The kids favorite project was the Ilukeres Fly Whisks from Ghana.  These ilukeres were carried by the kinds of Ashanti village to show that they were royal and it also helped shew away the bugs that would fly around them.  We took toilet paper tubes and tissue paper as well as some string.  We cut the paper in strips and stapled it around the tube and decorated them to look "fancy".  The kids used them for days when they would play outside to shew off the flies we are filled with this summer.

One of my most favorite features of this book was the fact that in the top corners of the book there was "warning" symbols.  These were there to tell you how hard the project would be as well as if there was a lot of preparation and the type of art you were doing.  For our favorite project it was rated easier, with a 2 for preparation, and a construction form of art.  This was really helpful for me when looking through it to see which ones would work better for the younger versus older kids.

The book had a great table of contents that makes it easier to reference too when you make your lesson plans.  If you are learning about a certain area you can quickly see it and see which projects are for that area.  Everything in the book was very easy to navigate and understand.  Many things could be made from things around your home which is always great for me. 

We enjoyed all of our art projects and we will continue to use the book for more of them.  It actually is prompting us to do more unit specific studies in Social Studies so we are sure to have a fun art project to do while learning.  Their are 100+ art lessons in this book and for just under $17 that is a great deal!