Art Appreciation
Things to See & Do in Colorado
University Memorial Center Art Gallery
The University Memorial Center Art Gallery, located in UMC 225, exhibits a variety of visual offerings ranging from student works created on campus to presentations of internationally recognized artists. The UMC Art Gallery seeks to expose the CU and Boulder communities to the role that art plays in understanding the complexity of human experience and culture. The gallery's role is to educate as well as display high quality artwork. The UMC Art Gallery exhibits the work of area and national artists. The gallery presents seven shows per year; three each semester and one in the summer.
Foothills Art Center
Foothills Art Center is a 35-year-old non-profit arts resource for Golden and the Denver Metro area as well as for the state, the Southwest, and for artists across the nation, through competitive exhibitions and invitational opportunities.
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center offers a multidisciplinary focus and includes the Taylor Museum, performing arts theatre, and the Bemis School of Art.
Gallery of Contemporary Art
Featuring a selection of contemporary art, the Gallery is located at and operated by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities
The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities was founded in 1976. Offers award-winning, professional regional theater, children’s theater, concerts, classical and contemporary dance performances, gallery exhibitions, a history museum, and over 600 arts and humanities classes each year for students of all ages.
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum has the largest and most comprehensive collection of world art between Kansas City and the West Coast, with over 55,000 works of art, including American Indian, pre-Columbian, and Spanish Colonial art. Other collections include Painting & Sculpture, Asian, Architecture, Design & Graphics, Modern & Contemporary, Textile Art, European, American and Western painting, sculpture, decorative art, textiles, and photography.
Van Briggle Pottery Factory Tour
Born in 1869, Artus Van Briggle from an early age demonstrated a unique artistic gift. He eventually open a pottery studio in Colorado Springs, using local clays found in the Colorado Springs area. His work earned him many honors. Artus Van Briggle died in 1904, but his wife continued to operate the pottery company. Today, the factory continues to produce many of Van Briggle’s original designs, often in his turquoise Ming matte glaze. The factory offers free tours.
Koshare Indian Museum
The Koshare Indian Museum in La Junta is patterned after the Pueblo architecture found throughout the southwest, featuring the world's largest self supporting log roof and housing a collection of Native American art and artifacts.
Swetsville Zoo - UPDATE: CLOSED 2016
Located at 4801 E. Harmony Road in Fort Collins, the Swetsville Zoo is an outdoor art gallery filled with metal animal sculptures. Bill Swets, creator of the Swetsville Zoo, built them all from car parts, farm machinery and scrap metal. Admission is free, but they do take donations. To read about the closing and moving of the sculptures, refer to the link in the title of this entry.
Teaching Tips & Ideas
Masterpiece Art Instruction
Masterpiece Art Instruction offers a free newsletter, "Teach Art at Home," along with free projects and lessons, art instruction CDs, and more
How I Teach a Large Family in a Relaxed, Classical Way: Fine Arts
Ideas for incorporating fine art education into a large homeschool family curriculum.
Looking for Another State?
Featured Resources

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. We get commissions for purchases made through links on this site.

Secret of Childhood
Maria Montessori describes the child with warmth and the exactness of a scientist. She also discusses the array of materials and techniques needed to release his learning potential.
So You're Thinking About Homeschooling: Fifteen Families Show How You Can Do It
Confused and intimidated by the complexities of homeschooling, many sincere parents never get past the "thinking about it" stage. Now Lisa Whelchel - herself a homeschooling mother of three - introduces fifteen real families and shows how they overcome the challenges of their unique homeschooling situations. This nuts-and-bolts approach deals with common questions of time management, teaching weaknesses, and outside responsibilities, as well as children's age variations, social and sports invol...
Conquering Chronic Disorganization
The real-life stories of chronically disorganized people and the ground breaking, easy-to-learn organizing methods used to end their chronic disorganization in the area of residential clutter, office organizing, paper management, storage, and time management. Conquerings pages includes an extensive index, user-friendly summaries, quick tips, helpful photographs, and a resource section of products and organizations.
The Absorbent Mind
In response to the crisis in American education, more than five thousand public and private schools across the nation have adopted the timeless Montessori Method of teaching, of which this book is the cornerstone. Written by the women whose name is synonymous worldwide with child development theory, The Absorbent Mind takes its title from the phrase that the inspired Italian doctor coined to characterize the child's most crucial developmental stage: the first six years.A new foreword by John Cha...
Greenleaf Press
Greenleaf Press is a small family-owned and operated publisher and supplier of quality books for children. They are committed to "twaddle-free", living books, and approach teaching history to children using biography and chronology. You will find sections in the catalog covering each major historical period in order, with a variety of biographies, reference books, and historical fiction. For Israel, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and Reformation there are Greenleaf Stu...