10 Arts Education Resources Available For Download on Kindle

Art education is often overlooked by teachers and administrators who are constantly being told that they should be more focused on their students’ progress in “real world” subjects like math and science. However, a great art curriculum has the power to transcend art class and positively affect a child’s ability to comprehend abstract concepts, observe patterns and relationships, and view problems from a different perspective that unlocks their solutions, both in their other classes as well as out in the world. 

Whether you’re a new art teacher in search of the keys to a great art lesson plan, or if if this isn’t your first rodeo and you want some resources to freshen up your art class curriculum, you will no doubt find inspiration in these art education resources, all of which are available for download on Kindle.

Studio Thinking from the Start: The K–8 Art Educator’s Handbook

A spinoff of the acclaimed Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education, this book focuses on applying Studio Thinking to art classrooms in the elementary and middle school setting. 

Studio Thinking from the Start provides K-8 art educators with techniques and language to nourish their students’ minds via new thinking skills -observation, reflection, envisioning- that they’ll take with them beyond the art studio.   

Integrating the Arts Across the Content Areas (Strategies to Integrate the Arts)

This is a great resource for teachers who want to use art to reignite disengaged students by utilizing strategies in dramatic movement, storytelling, poetry, music, and visual arts. Art is a powerful tool to get students invested and excited about school by appealing to their creative sides. 

Integrating the Arts Across the Content Areas maintains the belief that teachers can teach creatively while still meeting standards. The techniques described in the book support the College and Career Readiness Standards. 

Education For Socially Engaged Art

This book is an introductory resource to the world of socially engaged art. It’s less of a curriculum resource or lesson plan building guide, and more of a background resource for teachers to get familiar with the methodologies that artists employ as forms of social practice. 

When art education is approached as being adjacent to political issues, social justice, and activism, it often has a broader appeal to students. We believe that students identify with complex issues and have experienced moments of trauma, anger, and grief. When art is contextualized and taught as a tool for processing emotions and expressing ones’ self, students experience a more powerful connection with what’s being taught in art class. This book is a great way for teachers to familiarize themselves with this angle, and to begin to think on how to apply this way of thinking about art to their classes.

Art: A Brief History (2-downloads) – Kindle edition by Stokstad, Marilyn, Cothren, Michael W.. Arts & Photography Kindle eBooks

This eTextbook delves into the history of art from prehistory through the present, with stops in Ancient Egypt, early and later Asian periods, ancient Greece, Rome, art in the Gothic and Medieval periods, the Renaissance, African art, the art of the Americas, and more! It’s an accessible gateway for students to get introduced to art history, providing a thorough overview. We love that it doesn’t stop at European or Western art like too many other art history resources, and that it dives into underrepresented areas of art history. 

Art history is a fantastic way to inspire students to experiment with new art forms and ideas, and to connect art to history, politics, and science.

Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art

Art as Social Action addresses the cross section of art and issues like racism, migrants’ rights, women’s rights, and environmental justice. The book features essays, interviews, and comprehensive lesson plans dedicated to creating socially charged art from poetry to public murals, to performance art. It’s a great way to show your students how art coincides with social justice and politics, and how they can use their creative impulses to speak out about issues that matter to them.

Creating Vibrant Art Lesson Plans: A Teacher’s Sketchbook

This book stands out from the rest on our list because it is specifically centered on helping teachers build a lesson plan specific to their methods and context. The book encourages you to stop, breathe, and lean in on that art teacher’s creativity to reconceptualize lesson planning as a chore and instead consider it an opportunity for self-understanding and a place to recharge your batteries. 

This refreshing take on the art of lesson planning repositions the educator as the curriculum maker, and reimagines the lesson plan as nothing short of a reflection of the values and principles of the educator who created it.

The IPaintMyMind Arts Education Curriculum & Resource Guide: A Comprehensive Creative Experience for e-Learning, Hybrid Learning, and Homeschooling (20-21)

The IPaintMyMind Arts Education Curriculum & Resource Guide for Teachers, Parents & Caregivers is all about giving you the tools to bring the arts into your classroom, e-learning, remote learning, hybrid learning, or homeschooling set up. We provide a customizable curriculum ready to be dispensed at your pace, whether you meet for art class every day, every week, or once a month. The IPMM Arts Education Curriculum and Resource Guide relies on a backbone of appreciating contemporary working artists, and building on observation and art appreciation to get into the process of creating students’ own artwork. 

Our guide comes with art prompts and activities, a list of free outdoor art field trips you can plan across the United States, and connects you to a host of other online art resources and museums. 

Art Is Fundamental: Teaching the Elements and Principles of Art in Elementary School

This book offers a comprehensive elementary art curriculum with art projects designed to build on one another in a logical progression. Art Is Fundamental focuses on the elements of art -texture, color, shape- as well as principles such as balance, movement, and pattern. 

The lessons are also designed to support science, math, social studies and language arts through an interdisciplinary approach. This book is a fantastic resource for K-8 art teachers who will get the opportunity to install this curriculum and develop their students’ art literacy over several school years. 

Integrating the Visual Arts Across the Curriculum: An Elementary and Middle School Guide

The mission statement of this book is simple: Art can be a tremendous learning tool across a science, math, social studies, and language arts curriculum. Children connect to concepts through the visual arts in a way that they don’t by just reading facts from a textbook. 

This book connects art and math through their similar recognition of relationships and patterns, art and science through their shared observation processes, and demonstrates how visual arts and writing can both be used to tell a story. 

STEAM Power: Infusing Art Into Your STEM Curriculum

This book is all about blending STEM with the arts (hence “STEAM”) in a way that is accessible for new teachers. Featuring interviews with STEAM educators and professionals, STEAM Power offers insights and ideas for integrating art into a STEM curriculum. 

The book is divided into three parts: an introduction to the fundamentals of STEAM teaching, a list of eighteen STEAM projects that incorporate newer skills like 3D printing and coding with some classics like good ol’ cardboard, and finally a section devoted to advanced STEAM concepts to aid the growth of your STEAM program.

NOTE: Some of the links included in the above article are Amazon Affiliate links. If you make a purchase from these links, we may receive a small percentage of the proceeds.

Art education is an essential building block to growing a student’s academic and social skill sets. It’s not an overstatement to say that having an inspired art curriculum -taught by an enthusiastic art teacher- can change the way students view the world and themselves.    

To learn more about the ways IPaintMyMind is dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of art education in schools, and for access to even more art resources for the classroom, be on the lookout for more blog articles in the future! And be sure to check out more in-depth information about the IPMM Arts Education Curriculum and Resource Guide, developed by arts educators for educators.