Harmony Fine Arts and Outdoor Hour Challenge

We use her ideas all the time.  I have purchased her ebooks and have used the Outdoor Hour Challenges. This coming year (Aug.), we’ll be using her fine arts ebooks (they are free downloads).  We have several materials she uses in her ebooks that we have not been making use of the past 2 years or so. So I’m trying to make a plan using only the free downloads. And even though they are grade specific, many of the materials can be used for multiple ages.

In addition, we will be using SCM picture portfolios and the composer study program.

Her challenges make nature study happen and my kids thoroughly enjoy them. We just purchased a lot of supplies she recommends (and some she doesn’t but they looked great and are hard to resist;) and I’m very excited about this next year. We may begin some studies this summer but I’m giving myself a break before we get started.

In our home, my kids usually do better with certain subjects on their own. We enjoy pic study together but their is extra readings that I don’t want dependent on me or us being together as a group. Composer study can be somewhat together but they definitely need independent materials, as well. I plan on using an ebook or two that go along with our SCM material to enhance their studies. We have most of what she suggests but I needed a ready-made plan.

Hope this made sense. I have people (kids) talking around me 🙂

Oh, ya, she makes it very easy. She has some mini studies for $3.25 that I may purchase and I’ve downloaded all of her free material. Her ebooks have hyperlinks so you can easily see what material you need or the site with the artist’s pics and maybe a bio. I’ve been looking over some this weekend and I have most of what she uses, plus some things that I’d never seen before that I plan to purchase cause they look good:)

One of her 12th grade composer studies is free so my oldest will be using that next year with what we already own and a few I need to purchase.  Some of the ebooks use the exact same materials (or thereabouts) so really we could use any of them but I thought my oldest would appreciate the fact it says “Grade 12” ?

I think the key to doing any of the fine arts or nature study is to be prepared. Now and then we do something spontaneous, which can be great, but the better prepared I am the more likely it is to actually happen. Fine Arts is not an “extra” in a CM education (although it’s easy to see it that way and sometimes it’s enough just to get through the 3 r’s) but seems to be that area that gets easily dropped if we’re not prepared. Which is such a crime! Thats why I use Barb’s plans?

ETA: SCM fine arts materials make it happen too. But, if we want to go more indepth, her ebooks make that possible. Or, if I am trying to use material we already own, like the Mike Venezia books, then I can use her plans.