How many artists/composers do you do each year?

My kids are 6, 4, and 2 and we started things like Nature Study, artist and composer studies about 18 months ago.  I’ve planned a list of artists and composers, but didn’t really plan how long to spend on each.  I found some used books on different artists, so those are what we started with.  We just look at one picture a week and narrate/discuss.  When there are no more pictures in the book that I particularily want to discuss, we move on.  Eventually I may purchase some of SCM’s artist study packages.

For composers, I have followed my daughter’s lead and our family circumstances.  She loves Ballet, and is always dancing around the house.  So we started out with a DVD of a ballet of “Peter and the Wolf” and turned that into a bit of exploration on the internet about the different instruments.  Which then turned into her insisting that she needed to learn the violin, so now I’m deep into researching and learning the Suzuki method and watching dozens of Youtube videos so I can learn the violin fast enough to teach it to her.  So we also listen to the Suzuki pieces daily.

Anyway, then came an obsession with Tchiakovsky, because she wanted to dance to Swan Lake and Nutcracker.  Then I introduced Mozart and the kids danced to that for a while.  Then we were talking about seasons last fall, so I brought out Vivaldi and listened to his music for several weeks, starting with the Four Seasons of course.  Then at Christmas I was in a performance of “Messiah”, so we started listening to Handel.  That’s what we are still doing, although we’ve moved on to the Water Music and other pieces.  Oh, and somewhere in there we talked about Grampa’s favourite piece, Moonlight Sonata, so we did a couple months of Beethoven.

All of these composers are now favourites and the children put them on themselves and know which piece they want to hear.  Of course, usually they just know which track on the CD they want to listen to, and aren’t great with the names, but I’m not worried about that right now.  We have a 10 CD set with one or two composers on each disc.  That should keep us going for a while.

Sorry, that didn’t really answer your question about a specific number. LOL We just take it as it comes.  I think you could just start and see how your children react.  You will probably get a feel for how quickly to move.  This ‘subject’ doesn’t really take a whole lot of planning, so it’s easy to adjust as we go.

jmac

I have a bunch of information if you are thinking of doing Suzuki violin on your own… (obviously with a teacher is best, but I have lots of resources to let you know about either way)

You could PM me later if you want… 

For the original question… AO does 3 artists and composers over the year, so I feel that that is certainly fine and not something you should worry about not doing enough…

lol Joanne! 

No – I didn’t make the connection.  Actually, I don’t pay nearly enough attention to who says what…. lol

btw – I found a couple of files I’m not sure I sent you… one is called “progress through repetition” and the other is “The First 10 teaching Steps for a young violin student”…  they weren’t were most of my files were.  Do you have them, or should I send them?