Art with Anything: 52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff (Mary Ann Kohl Books)

I own many of MaryAnn Kohl's books and love using them. Art With Anything is a new approach that will add great depth to the art experiences in my classroom.As a teacher, I'm always looking for free or low-cost materials that will provide high-quality art experiences for children. We save egg cartons, berry baskets, bubble wrap, cardboard tubes, old CDs, and lots of other "stuff." But I was running out of ideas for what to do with these classroom favorites. Art With Anything is just what I need!! MaryAnn has so many fresh, creative suggestions for using just about anything I have saved or can buy inexpensively. The cool thing is that she presents five (and sometimes more) ideas for each item, so that I can use the same materials for a week or more. Day 1 is the most basic and the other four days build on the first, allowing children to experiment and explore.Not only does Art With Anything give me new ideas for using what I already have, it gives me lots of ideas for materials I hadn't even thought to use-- junk mail, hole-punch dots, old blurry photos and CD cases. I like how the book repeats types of projects with different materials. There are numerous collage activities, printing techniques and mobiles so children can refine their skills.The format is user-friendly and visually appealing. Having five days worth of projects on a two-page spread makes it easy to plan my curriculum. The lists of materials and directions are clear and compact. It's amazing how many ideas fit in this book---cotton balls, clear plastic wrap, coffee grounds, cotton swabs, jigsaw puzzle pieces. I'm convinced we really can art with anything!

This book is geared to 4-10 yr-olds, but many of the ideas can be adapted to work with 3-5yr-olds. If you are a teacher or librarian looking for fun process art ideas-this is a great resource!This book has a great layout. Each week she explores a different medium and carries it through for a 5-day lesson. Some of her ideas are ones that many of us with a creative brain have already figured out, but I love how she takes an idea from Day 1 and uses it again on Day 3 or 4. This will come in very handy for library programming.

There are some good ideas for arts and crafts in this book, so it will be useful for me in my work with young children. I am giving it only three stars because it would be so much more helpful if pictures of the final projects would have been added to the text. In fact, pictures or visual representations would have been the most important part of the book for me had they been added.

I have several of Kohl's books. This is my least favorite. It has A LOT of ideas of small scale art projects. But, they are sort of lame for lack of a better word. It may be that I have not developed the idea to its highest potential. I have found the ideas and activities in her other book more engaging. Overall, I love Kohl's books, this one is just not the BEST.

I have other books by this author and love them. While many ideas are open-ended, there was an element of repetition in this book that I had not noticed in the other books.

I truly wanted to like this book. But unless you have never worked with children and art you will find the projects lame. I have yet to find one I would actually do with either my 5 or nine year old. I love the idea of the book but the projects lack interest and produce very boring objects. Sorry..as said before I REALLY WANTED TO LOVE THIS BOOK. If you have no experience working with art projects and children this could be useful. But I believe if you just put a variety of these materials in front of a child they could come up with something much more fun.

This is a MUST HAVE for any parent, caregiver, Nanny, Grandparent for summer vacations, VBS, etc. Most everything in this book is already in a normal household and ready for play....except really, really stock up on GLUE!

great book to have handy, it has helped me look at materials differently and help save lots of money. my child loves many of the activites here and inspired spin offs of our own.

I found this in a local library and had to buy a copy. I'm starting out as a childminder and there are so many great ideas here. It's set into one object per week, with 5 craft ideas. I've tried out a few with my kids and they've all been hits. The list of materials required is very clear for each project. Ideal for pre-school and early school years.

give a lot of different ideas on crafts, definitely doing these as soon as it gets warm enough outside! T