Homeschool art curriculum, free: a weekly art plan by age

A free homeschool art curriculum can be one short art session most days with four strands that rotate through the week: drawing, colour, picture study and making, with a "show it" day at the end. You need paper, crayons, a cheap paint set, a few free museum websites and the recycling bin. Peabody (peabody.kids) wrote this plan, and its Art Studio, Cartoons and Workbench are free through the end of 2026. The outside resources aren't ours, and nobody paid to be listed.

Every fact about an outside site below was read from its own page on 18 October 2026. Where a page didn't say something, we leave it out or say "not stated".

A weekly homeschool art plan

Four or five days is the full version. Many families do two or three of these days a week, and that's still a real art curriculum. Skipping a day costs nothing.

How long should art be, by age?

Young children care about the doing, not the result. Older children like learning a skill and seeing it get better. Both are right.

Drawing: draw-alongs and drawing from life

Art for Kids Hub is a family-run site with more than 3,000 step-by-step drawing lessons, as its page says. The YouTube channel and the website are free and supported by ads; a paid membership (from $5.99 a month in October 2026, with a 7-day trial) removes ads and adds offline downloads. Draw-alongs are a good start for children who say "I can't draw": they show that a picture is a set of simple shapes.

Balance draw-alongs with drawing from life. Put an object on the table, such as an apple, a toy car or a shoe, and draw what you see, not what you think it looks like. Ten minutes is enough.

Colour: mixing, colouring and colour by sum

Start with real paint. A child who mixes yellow and blue and gets green remembers it. Then:

• Ages 4 to 6: name the colours, mix two primaries, sort crayons by colour.
• Ages 7 to 9: make a colour wheel with primaries and secondaries; paint the same picture in warm colours, then cool ones.
• Ages 10 to 13: tints (add white), shades (add black), and colour schemes: complementary pairs, analogous colours.

Peabody's Art Studio adds on-screen colouring. It has 25 colouring pages drawn as shapes a tap fills, so a young child can colour inside the lines without fine motor control yet. Each page also has colour by sum at three levels: each region shows a sum, a tap offers three colours from the key, and the right answer fills it. A wrong one wobbles and waits. It is a gentle way to fold math into Tuesday.

Picture study: looking at real art

Picture study means looking closely at one painting for a few minutes, then talking about it. It needs no art history lecture. A simple routine:

1. Look for two minutes without talking.
2. Say what you see. "A boat." "People in hats." "It's raining."
3. Ask one question. What time of day is it? What would you hear if you were there? What happens next?
4. Turn it over and sketch it from memory, or tell it back in your own words.
5. Name it. The artist, the title, roughly when.

The Art Institute of Chicago offers more than 50,000 images of public-domain works free to use, under Creative Commons Zero, as its open access page says. Search its collection for "public domain" to find them. Here is a free 12-week picture study list, all twelve public-domain images there as of October 2026:

Pair each one with a making day: dots like Seurat, a wave like Hokusai, a bedroom drawn from your own room like van Gogh, a still life of real apples like Cezanne.

Google Arts & Culture opens museum collections, stories and an "Artwork of the day" without a sign-in, and has playful pieces such as an art colouring book. Tate Kids has short videos and reads about artists such as Frida Kahlo, J.M.W. Turner and Yoko Ono, art quizzes, drawing games and a gallery of children's art.

Making: real things with hands

Making is where art meets building. Cardboard, tape, string, paper cups and glue are enough for years. Tate Kids has making ideas, such as a paper pumpkin inspired by Yayoi Kusama.

Peabody's Workbench has twelve real things to build at home, each with a picture checklist of materials, steps of one sentence each, a test with a number, and three ways to make it better: a Wall Marble Run, a Paper Cup Tower, a Shoebox Guitar, Ramp Races, a Foil Boat, The Pigs' House vs. the Wolf, a Paper Airplane Lab, a Craft-Stick Catapult, a Straw Rocket, an Index-Card Bridge, a Light-Up Card and a Hydraulic Robot Arm. Half start at kindergarten. Each step is a short film drawn in code, and Peabody reads every step aloud. A step that needs a sharp or hot tool says so first and shows a grown-up badge.

What Peabody's Art Studio, Cartoons and Workbench do

The Art Studio is open to anyone, with no account. It has crayon, marker, paint, pencil, spray, glitter, stamps, shapes, stickers, fill and an eraser, mirror drawing, a 24-crayon box whose colour names Peabody says, and layers. Undo is the biggest button. Besides colouring pages and colour by sum, its Ideas button holds:

• Trace letters: every capital, small letter and number 0–9 traced in the order kindergartens teach, plus the first forty sight words, with a green dot to start on and help that fades as a letter is traced right.
• Draw a word: Peabody says a word, the child draws it, then picks its spelling from three boxes.
• What happens next?: Peabody says the start of a short, cosy story and the child draws the next part.

Every picture is kept on the device's fridge (up to sixty), never sent anywhere, with Watch it again to replay how it was drawn and save it as a short video. There is no AI and no typing in the Art Studio.

Cartoons lets a child make a short animated cartoon by tapping it together: three to eight scenes, each a backdrop from the library's drawn scenes, up to four characters, what each does and says, and a line of narration. The device's own voice reads it. It can start from a story, turning a library book into scenes, or from Surprise me, and it prints as a comic strip. Nothing is recorded or uploaded; shorts are kept on the device. Cartoons is new (October 2026), so expect rough edges.

The Workbench is described above. Tries and test results stay on the device.

The World of facts, reached from the front page, also has an Art land with short trails by level: Lines and Shapes, Mixing Colors, Near and Far in Pictures, The Color Wheel and The Elements of Art.

Using Peabody in your homeschool art

1. Tuesday, 10 minutes, ages 4 to 8: one colouring page in the Art Studio, then colour by sum on the same page if they want more. You sit beside them and name the colours together.
2. Thursday, 30 to 45 minutes, any age: one Workbench build. You gather the materials the night before from the checklist and do the steps marked for a grown-up.
3. Friday, 15 minutes, ages 6 and up: make a cartoon from a story read that week in the free library, then play it for the family.
4. Any day, 5 minutes, ages 4 to 6: trace two letters in the Art Studio, then write them on paper.

Honest limits

• On-screen art is not a replacement for paint and paper. The Art Studio is for colouring, tracing and play; real materials teach things a screen can't.
• There is no art history course, no grading, no portfolio export and no teacher feedback.
• Pictures and cartoons live on the device. Another device won't show them.
• Its free period is promised only through 31 December 2026.

The homeschool hub has the rest of the week, and our free homeschool apps and free homeschool science curriculum cover more subjects.

Learn more elsewhere

• Art Institute of Chicago open access images: more than 50,000 public-domain images, free to use.
• Tate Kids: artist videos, games, quizzes and making ideas.
• Art for Kids Hub: free draw-along videos, with ads.
• Google Arts & Culture: museum collections and stories from around the world.

Questions parents ask

Is there a free homeschool art curriculum?

Yes, you can build one from free pieces. A weekly rotation of drawing, colour, picture study and making, using free draw-along videos, the Art Institute of Chicago's public-domain images, Tate Kids and Peabody's Art Studio and Workbench (free through the end of 2026), covers the main strands. You need paper, crayons and a cheap paint set.

How much time should homeschool art take?

About 15 to 20 minutes for ages 4 to 6, 20 to 30 for ages 7 to 9, and 30 to 45 for ages 10 to 13. Two or three sessions a week is a full art curriculum for many families; four or five is generous.

What is picture study?

Picture study is looking closely at one artwork for a few minutes, describing what you see, asking a question about it, and then sketching it or telling it back from memory. One painting a week for twelve weeks builds a child's eye without needing an art history course.

What art supplies do I need to homeschool art?

Paper, crayons, washable markers, a set of watercolour or tempera paints, brushes, glue, scissors and tape. Add cardboard, paper cups and string from the recycling for making days. A sketchbook helps children from about 8.

Does Peabody's Art Studio keep my child's pictures online?

No. Pictures are kept on the device, up to sixty on its fridge, and nothing is sent anywhere. There's no AI and no typing in the Art Studio, and it needs no account. The same is true of cartoons made in Cartoons.

Can art count toward homeschool records?

Many families count art as a subject. Keep a photo or a few pieces from each week, the picture study list, and dates. Check your state's rules for what records are needed.