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Art and Music study
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I need some advice for this area of teaching. I’m going to do the CM way of art study and music study, with added bios, videos and coloring pages. I’d like to add some sort of notebook to this to have a physical something hands-on, like a notebook. Or should I? They’re only 7 and 8. What do you think?
Speaking of the music, what kind of discourse do you have about the music, other than “What did you think?”?
How do ya’ll do the art and music study? It’s important to me.I know they already appreciate it, especially art. But I want to have it more prominent in their lives, so it will stick and be something that enriches them.
Thanks,
Rachel
Rachel, we tend to keep this very, very simple or else we put it off and never get to it. 🙂 But I certainly think you could easily incorporate notebooking. In fact, I’ve seen notebooking pages at http://www.notebookingpages.com They have a composers set you can purchase, and also free pages you can personalize yourself in the free Art section. You could just ask for very simple narrations, or write down a full picture study response, or whatever works for you.
We tend to read a brief biography from the library or online, then just listen and look and respond together.
Oh, and I’ve seen “color your own masterpiece” pages in various places you could use for an artist notebook, too.
Michelle D
About a year ago, someone mentioned a coffee table ART book. This is something we are working on as a family. It will (in the end) include paintings the girls have done from our picture study, pieces of art work, and a narrated bio from each girl on the artist which we studied. This is something that can go on for years, as things keep getting added to the book! Art is important in my family as well, so I also have a number of artist books easily accesable for the kids to pull out and read whenever they want to. My oldest is 8…she is the passionate artist in the house. Hope that helps? With music I have found that just by listening to the music, and coloring pictures, along with a bio and narration, the kids really catch on. Even the 4 yo will scream out in the car that this is Beethovan! Have fun!! =)
We don’t usually “discuss” music. We just listen to it and comment on a part we like or don’t like, as the case may be. 🙂 When the kids were small, I would sometimes invite them to move in the way the music felt to them. For example, with the Trisck Trasck (sp?) polka by Strauss, for some reason it reminded them of a horse galloping and every time it would come on while we were eating lunch, they would ask to be excused as they ran around the house “cantering.”
Sometimes it’s fun to invite them to draw what they “see” when they hear a certain piece of music. But most of the time we just listen and comment if we notice something. Nothing formal or high pressure. My main objective is that they get familiar with a composer’s style and form their own relationships with them: “I like this one,” “I like this one but not as much as that one,” etc.
Now that my kids are older, it’s fun to see them selecting which music they want to listen to as they knit or spin. They pick a composer based on what kind of mood they’re in. To me, that’s a good grasp of style and appreciation. 🙂
This is not my idea (read it on a CM blog that I can give the link, if desired) but I loved the idea and it seemed simple enough that I might be able to do it someday (my kids are too young now). She would put the art picture up on the computer, have the child narrate, then give them a postcard size print of the same picture to put into a photo album. The photo album was just a simple album with a spot to write next to the picture – there the child would write the artist name and title of the piece. Oh I think she also kept the picture as the computer’s wallpaper until they moved on to the next one.
Joy
For music study, I check out biographies of composers from the library. I like to get more than one book if I can, and we go through the books slowly. I also check out CDs from the library (or buy them) and we listen to the music, usually starting after we’ve read the first biography. My kids like music, but they are MUCH more interested in specific pieces after we’ve read the biography. It can be very exciting to listen to a piece when you know a little information about it. Then, as we do quiet work at home, I play the music in the background over the course of a few weeks or so. I don’t lead a discussion about the music, but conversations sometimes happen spontaneously about the music.
I include classical music in our studies, but also world music and American music, especially jazz. I have a passionate opinion about the importance of jazz in the American heritage. The biographies are harder to find that are appropriate for younger kids, but the music and improvisation are worth studying, in my opinion.
As we study different places in the world, I try to find music from that region and play it. This has been an especially fun thing to do, and helps us “get” a feeling of the place.
When we watch DVDs, sometimes I’ll point out the music in the background and we’ll talk about why that music was picked. What mood is established by the music? Are there musical themes that are used throughout the movie to match the themes of the movie? This is especially fun (and funny) when watching old silent movies. The music is crucial in those pictures.
We haven’t been keeping a notebook about music, but we do write down dates in the Book of Centuries.
We concentrated on Bach this fall and had such fun with it.
I really like reading what other people do with these studies.
Well, ya’ll confirmed the direction I was already moving in then. Since it’s a “smaller” subject in terms of materials, I think a family notebook makes more sense.
I have plenty of the music, a Beethoven bio (the old one by O.W) and composer coloring pages form Dover and the audio, “Beethoven lives upstairs”. For artists, I have several coffee table art books (esp. Impressionists, which is my fav.), artist calendars, the artist video series on the three I picked out for this year, a Monet bio (I’m thinkiong about the Dover color your own masterpieces, unless I can find something online, free)
My main quandry is that my husband suffers from seizures, so I can’t always play music with certain instruments and frequencies (like violins) due to the effects it has on his brain; he says it literally feels painful. He’s trying to accomodate more, but I don’t get to play it as much as I would like.
I’m taking them to a “children’s” orchestra (it’s shorter, with some learning aids involved) in Feb.
I also enjoy an ecletic mix. Specifically, American folk, our own Messianic Jewish music, Israeli and Celtic folk music for our backgrounds and for the Southerner in me (and my children!)bluegrass is enjoyed (love that fiddle!)as well as THE BLUES! Specifically, Texas Blues. It moves me! Not to mention I have a penchant for Broadway music. Good stuff! BTW, has anyone exposed their children to the famous Victor Borge? He’s dead now, butI remember fondly watcing him as a child. He was a classical pianist who used humor in his presentations. YOU’ve got to Netflix him or keep an eye out for him on PBS. He was quite an enjoyment.
I agree about the jazz history, too. Though I can’t handle fusion jazz; I feel like my head is going to explode! I like the Harry Connick Jr. type, I guess, more like swing/Big Band than actually jazz. BTW,there’s a republished bio of Stephen Foster at Zeezok publihing. I don’t know anything about him other than his influence with American folk music in our past.
Thanks,
Rachel
I grew up with Victor Borge, and my girls have inherited some old videos of his performances. They enjoy him. I agree that he was an extraordinary pianist! (He even plays a few pieces “straight” in some of our recordings. 😉 ) Oh, and don’t overlook his “inflationary language” and “phonetic punctuation” readings. What fun!
We just finished the Stephen Foster book by Opal Wheeler. We used the original version that we picked up at a book sale, so I don’t know whether the re-release has been edited at all. The version we have uses a lot of the old-fashioned references to African Americans, including the phonetic spellings to communicate their dialect like those used in Huckleberry Finn. In all, it was a good book and we learned how much of his music was influenced by listening to slaves’ singing, but it’s not one of my favorite Opal Wheeler books. We found quite a few of the songs mentioned in the book on YouTube. As always, you have to be careful which versions you choose, but the girls commented that they hadn’t realized how many common American folk songs were written by Stephen Foster.
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