Middle Ages Arts: A Family-Style Arts Program PDF

Course Overview

Middle Ages Arts is an activity-based art program. It focuses on art appreciation and art history, but uses art projects and crafts alongside books, videos, and printables to teach about the art movements, artists, and what they reveal about human societies. In this course students learn about the arts of cultures across the world during the middle ages. Painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, and other art forms are all included.

Learn more about how Layers of Learning works.

What’s In This PDF Set?

Middle Ages Arts includes nine individual month-long units including:

1. Early Medieval Art – This unit includes the art of Byzantines, the Barbarians, Carolingian Renaissance (Charlemagne’s court) and Celtic and Norse art.
2. Islamic Art – In this unit you will learn about characteristics of art that was created in the Islamic caliphates of the middle ages including calligraphy, paintings, tile work, and architecture.
3. East Asian Arts – This unit is abut the art of China, Japan, and other Asia kingdoms and empires including paintings, pottery, plays, literature, and other arts.
4. Art of the Islands – Learn about the dance, music, stories, and other arts of the people of the Pacific islands.
5. Late Medieval Art – This unit focuses on Romanesque and Gothic art styles.
6. Medieval Stories – In this unit you will learn about stories and plays of the middle ages in Europe and focus on the Canterbury Tales and the King Arthur stories.
7. Art of the Americas – Olmec, Maya, and Native American arts and legends are the focus of this unit.
8. Early Renaissance – This unit is about the beginnings of the Renaissance and the early artists and thinkers who revolutionized art in the west.
9. High Renaissance – This unit focuses on the greatest art and artists of the Renaissance such as Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo Da Vinci. It also has a section devoted to Shakespeare.

A Layers of Learning Art Lesson

Each Exploration in the units is written as a complete lesson plan. It will direct you to books to read, videos to watch, projects to craft, sketches and paintings to create, and discussions to have. The units are clear full of Explorations to choose from, and you won’t have time for them all. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum.

Besides the art lesson for the day, the units are lined with sidebars that direct you to discussions, books, famous people, interesting facts, writing ideas, and more.

You will also see a Library List at the beginning and a Show What You Know section at the end that will help you create assessments or tests based on your individual learning.

Reusable and for All Ages

These units books are for the mentor, not to hand to the student. They are supposed to be used repeatedly. Since this is a pick-and-choose curriculum, you do some of the experiments and explorations and save others for later on. If you follow the four-year cycle, you will progress through Art Beginnings, Middle Ages Arts, Colonial Period Arts, and Modern Art over the course of four years. Then you will cycle back to Art Beginnings in the fifth year when your kids are older and learning at a higher level. In all, you may use this book three times with your child.

The Arts units contain lessons ranging from drawing a picture of your family with Byzantine style haloes to analyzing great art. There are plenty of concepts for little kids and plenty to challenge high schoolers. Most lessons are meant to be taught to many ages, from 6-year-olds clear up to seniors in high school.  Each age group gets the same Exploration and principles, but they learn on the level they are ready for. Books from your library and video from the YouTube playlists customize the learning for each age.

Extra Resources

YouTube playlists and links to helpful websites are all assembled and ready for you to access on the Middle Ages Arts Resources page.

If you are buying the PDF course, you may want a printable Middle Ages Arts PDF cover for your binder.

Printable Packs

Middle Ages Arts also includes printables for every unit. These are worksheets or paper crafts for the students. The Printable Packs are available as a digital PDF download and come with your purchase on your receipt.

Also Sold As Individual PDFs

The Middle Ages Arts course also comes as individual PDF units you can purchase one-by-one as you go. The individual PDFs are exactly the same content as the units that are included within the paperback or PDF Middle Ages Arts book. It’s like buying the course chapter by chapter in a digital format.