How One Art Project Teaches Every Kind of Learner
I spent five years as an elementary art teacher, and if there's one thing that never stopped being true, it's this: put twenty kids in front of the same project, and you'll get twenty different ways of getting there.
Some kids need to see the finished piece before they'll pick up a brush. Some need someone talking them through it. Some want the directions written down so they can go at their own pace. And some just need to get their hands on the paint and figure it out as they go.
If you're homeschooling and trying to find one art activity that actually works for your kid, or works for all of your kids, who probably don't learn the same way either, that's the real question.
Not “is this a good project,” but “will this actually reach my kid.” Here's how I think about it, and how I built my watercolor workbooks around it
The Four Ways Kids Take In Information
Teachers talk about this using a framework called VARK: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. It's more of a practical lens than a hard science, and it's one I leaned on every single day in the classroom, because it explains a lot about why the same lesson lands for one kid and completely misses another.
Visual learners need to see it before they can do it.
Auditory learners need to hear it explained, ideally more than once.
Reading and writing learners want it broken into words they can follow at their own pace.
And kinesthetic learners need to physically do the thing. Watching or reading only gets them partway there.
Most instruction picks one of these and calls it done. A video tutorial is great for auditory and visual learners, useless for a kid who get's overwhelmed and want's to read step-by-step.
A worksheet with written directions is great for readers, but it leaves your visual kid staring at text with no idea what the final piece is supposed to look like.
Why These Workbooks Can Hit All Four
So every project in my workbooks is built to teach the same lesson four different ways at once, on the same page.
There's a full color, finished example on the page so visual learners know exactly what they're working toward before they touch a brush.
There's a video lesson, narrated step by step, that your kid can pause and rewind, so auditory learners hear the instructions as many times as they need and visual learners can see it in action.
There's clear, written directions directly adjacent to where they paint, so reading and writing learners have something to follow without needing anyone to translate it for them.
And then there's the part every kid gets no matter how they learn best: the brush is in their hand, the paint is on the page, and they're making the actual marks. That's the kinesthetic piece, and it's the one that makes the learning stick.
What This Looks Like for You at Home
You don't have to figure out which learner your kid is before you hand them a workbook. That's kind of the point.
If your kid won't sit through a lesson unless they can see the finished project first, it's there.
If they need to hear something explained twice, the video's built for that.
If your reader would rather just follow steps on their own, they can skip the video completely and go straight to the written directions and the example.
And if none of that matters because they just want to paint, they can.
One project. However they learn, they get there.
Why This Matters Beyond the Painting
This isn't really about turning your kid into an artist. It's about them getting to take in something the way that actually makes sense to them, probably for the first time in a while.
A lot of homeschool curriculum, like a lot of traditional schooling, defaults to reading and writing. That works great for some kids and leaves others convinced they're bad at learning, when really they just haven't been taught in a way that fits how their brain works.
A project built for all four styles at once gives every kid at your table a version of school where they're not the one who's behind.
Now What?
Everything I've mentioned here is the whole idea behind the workbook collection: one hands-on art activity that works no matter what kind of learner is sitting at your table. Lots of differently themed workbooks, $26 each, or grab any 4 for $80 with code HOMESCHOOL and have a school year's worth of projects.
You've got this 🥳
-Alyssa
