Start at Home and in the Classroom

Start at Home activities are the perfect way for children to extend their ‘Start’ experience at home after a visit at the Gallery. Highlighting artists and works of art in the Gallery’s collection, these activities, which include a related project, can be collected at a Start at the Gallery event (first Sunday of every month) or downloaded from our website.

Increasingly, the teachers who engage with our programs have also been using the Start at Home activities as starting points to plan units of work in response to an artist’s work – in a culturally appropriate way. Early-career teachers who may need a little extra support in the art classroom when starting out and teachers of early years and primary students have found the activities a valuable tool when structuring lessons. Maria Bilske, Visual Art, Design and Creative Arts Teacher at Glenunga International High School, shares her experience with Start at Home:

I have used the Start at Home resources as the basis of online learning activities for pre-service primary and early childhood teachers studying art education subjects online at the University of South Australia. I have found the accessible introductions to artists’ practice, paired with practical prompts for simple art activities, allow pre-service teachers who might have limited access to art materials and an emerging understanding of contemporary art to create projects that respond to artworks in the AGSA collection in an authentic way. They can continue to use the resources as a model for ways of developing their own art units for students in their future teaching practice.

I have also adapted the Start at Home resources or used them as inspiration for activities with upper primary/lower secondary art students in the art room. While they are devised as activities to be completed at home, they are easily scaled up, combined and extended with additional artists or techniques to create more sustained projects in school art studios.

Over sixty Start at Home activities can be accessed from our website, so why not try your hand at some of these activities next school holidays or pass them on to a teacher you know.