Game Schooling - Prestel Art Game

This year "Art Class" is about reading poetry (over tea, in bed at night, with breakfast, while studying theology...), listening to Classics for Kids radio, hearing excerpts from renowned pieces of literature, looking at types of architecture, placing styles of art & artists on a timeline, and....playing the Prestel Art Game!

We've been playing this for several weeks now, and it's pushed us to learn art terminology, recognize famous pieces, and learn about eras in art history. One thing I really appreciate is that you don't have to start out knowing a whole lot about art and artists in order to progress in the game. There are enough questions that are, "What do you think?" type questions to keep it moving. We use our creative and critical thinking skills to imagine what artists might be trying to say with a piece, what the subjects in a painting might be thinking, and what is most striking about certain pieces of artwork and why. Players "compete" with those questions by seeing if their answers match up with the answers of other players. There are also some "Pictionary" and "Taboo" type challenges.

As a way to extend the learning with this game, we keep the laptop around to look up other pieces of art by some artists or to search for similar styles and eras in art history!