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Picture Study, Composers, and Spanish
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Hi! I have not been doing the picture study, the composer study, or Spanish with my boys-8, 6, and 2. (This is my first year homeschooling and the thought overwhelmed me in September!) But, I am leaning towards incorporating this into my schedule. I am thinking about doing each subject once a week. Is that enough for early elementary? Also, do you use a curriculum? Or do you just find the living books, read them, and ask for narrations? I would really like to have some sort of easy, cheap curriculum in these areas. But, I can’t afford much! Any ideas?
Jennifer
I will tell you how cheap I am. Picture and Composer study is free if you have a library. Just pick the ones you want to do, use the bookfinder here on SCM and then request away. It’s that simple.
Composer Study:Then have them listen to the composer and maybe do a search online about them to give your child a breif overview of them. Be careful many had not so beautiful lifes. That is why I read it first.
Picture Study:Have them study one picture for 5 minutes then take it away from them and ask them what they remember in the picture .. that’s all I do, it’s fun and easy.
Spanish is a bit different for everyone. I bought a system that works for us and it was $99 it is called Euro Talk. It’s more like a game. They can pick what they want to learn, like simple words, colors, numbers, etc and it has pictures and people speaking it outloud. I like it and it wasn’t as expensive as Rosetta Stone. Also, it was suggested by a friend who speaks spanish and teaches it to her kids.
I hope that helps. This is my easy approach to these. I am sure you will get more ideas. Misty
Jennifer,
Misty and I must do the same thing for picture study and composer study. I just email or call my librarians a couple of weeks before we begin a new artist/composer, and they have stacks of resources ready for me in a couple of days. I sort through the stacks, pick what I think will be the best and most useful resources for us, go home, and pick pictures/songs.
We might do composer study a little differently. I just keep a CD (checked out from the library, of course) in my car, and we listen to it every time we’re driving. We just finished a composer study on Mozart, and we really enjoyed listening to one CD over and over. The kids became familiar enough with even the opera that they were humming along with the tune! I also read a book or two about the composer. There is a series of books on both artists and composers by Mike Venezia–Getting to Know the World’s Greatest series. I found several of these books on Amazon for very cheap, but our library also has them.
Picture study and composer study have been two of our favorite subjects. They don’t take long, but my kids enjoy them so much; and I am confident they are getting more exposure to the fine arts than their public school peers in only 5 or 10 minutes a week. I don’t have set days for composer study because we always end up listening more than one day a week. We do picture study on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Hope that’s helpful,
Lindsey
Here’s how we do Picture Study and Music/Composer Study.
Once a week for each is just fine. And both can be done at little or no expense, as mentioned above. You can also do a Google images search for the artist’s works and do the picture study at your computer for free, if you want to. Some moms then make that picture their wallpaper or screensaver for the rest of the week.
Sounds like you’re in for some fun times ahead.
Here are some links you could take a look at:
http://www.squidoo.com/charlotte-mason-styled-composer-study
http://www.classicsforkids.com/composers/
Thanks ladies! You all are always such a great help to us newbies! I am going to continue looking at your ideas at see what will work best for us. I know that it will be great once I get it figured out. But, the arts intimidate me! I was the girl who openly avoided all arts because I was afraid that I would stink at it and then it would drop my GPA! So, I will probably learn just as much as my kids! I am replaying a quote that I heard from Joyce Meyer this morning… “If you are afraid…then move forward…afraid.” Her point was that it is better to do SOMETHING with a little fear than to avoid it altogether because it intimidates you. I think it applies rather nicely in this situation!
One question….I would really like to have individual art prints to hang over my kids’ desks. But, everywhere I have looked is really expensive! Is there any way to accomplish getting individual prints cheap?? I thought I could just start collecting them over time. Any ideas?
Jennifer
These post cards are very inexpensive:
One other inexpensive means of getting photos, though you need to be careful of copyrights, is to find one online, copy it to your computer, then have it printed at a local photo developer. The only downside to this is that often the resolution is not suited for smaller prints. I have six of John Singer Sargent’s works, printed at Sam’s, that I rotate once a week on the fridge door. Keep the front of the fridge clear of everything but the print to avoid visual distraction from the art. The kids are exposed to it every time they go to the kitchen, and once a week, they do both a Picture Study and a sketch of an aspect of the painting of their chosing.
The link that inspired my last post: http://higherupandfurtherin.blogspot.com/2006/12/our-picture-studies.html
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