I’d like to hear how others are doing their picture/music study? We are starting with Bach, and Van Gogh, but being our first week in, all I have done is chosen the composer, etc! I’m now at a standstill…..wondering…? =)
I’m in the same position! I have so many great ideas, I just don’t know where to start. Are there specific artists/composers who are good for beginners? Should you save certain artists/composers for certain age groups? I have a 3 1/2 and 7 year old.
Although our school doesn’t start again until January here’s what I have planned. We are going to study a number of artists and composers so what I would like to do is: check out a few CDs from the library that feature to the composer and listen to one piece of music from the composer each week. I want to spend 6 weeks on each composer. Sometime during the 6 weeks I want to read about the composer’s life while we listen to the music. And if I can I’d like to display a picture of the composer as well. The same with the picture study. Check out several books that feature the artist and display a different picture for a week (for 6 weeks again). We will talk about the artist’s choice of subject, style of art, color, mood etc. I want to spend one of the days reading about the artist’s life and possibly display a picture of him or her. Since we are on vacation right now (my school year runs from Jan. to Oct.) I want to spend time looking for these materials so I will know where to find them when the time comes. I know Dover Publications has lots of art postcards, coloring pages and the like. You might try that website. HTH!!
(Moderator’s note: We highly encourage linking to other sites; however, Ambleside Online has requested that anyone linking to their site must have permission and, then, must link only to their home page. We want to honor their wishes. So I have changed the links in the post above to direct to the same CM passages but on a site that doesn’t require permission.)
hi, Fantastique excitement in the posts above. Since this is one of my fav. subjs. just have to share what I learned from time, experience and the CM group left behind 🙁 — Playing the music is KEY 🙂 (pun intended), and reading a book about the composer is good if the child is 6 and up. But, with all different ages, one of the art books i saw had the awesome idea of taping paper under the kitchen table and letting the child act like Leonardo, who painted on the Sistine chapel. You can be creative as you read about these artists’ lives.
Just putting postcards of famous artists on your wall in clear frames, or on the fridge will begin its own appreciation for it.
Here is an idea that I am starting this year. I print out the pictures that we are studying on regular paper. My printer works great for this. Then we are going to keep them in a notebook so we can look back at them from time to time. We will put them in page protectors. If we keep this up we will have our own art coffee table book. I wish I would have started this when we started doing artists studies 5 years ago. Just think what we would have now. But alas we did not do that.
I am also wondering if anyone knows of any form(such as name,birth/death,info about artists’life,etc.) already made for the kiddos to fill out about the artist. I can make one up, but though I would see if anyone already has it done. This could go in the notebook too as well as narrations and or drawings.
I use a form from the following website http://www.lovetolearnplace.com – Click under book reports and scroll to the bottom. Forms include ‘composer’s corner’, ‘artist’s alchemy’, ‘awesome orators’, etc.
I am enjoying this forum – thanks everyone!!! I am encouraged!!
I absolutely LOVE the idea of making a picture cofee table book! Since we have just started, this will be fantastic!
Now, on another note, if anyone has any ideas on Van Gogh, I’d like to hear them, as my DD 7 yrs old yesturday informed me that Van Gogh’s work is “nasty” I was shocked to say the least, and wquite upset that she would say such a thing!!!!! Now, if she is having this reaction, do we pick another artist to start with, or do I stick with this one to help eher find the beauty in it?
Christina, if she persists disliking VanGogh, I might cut the study shorter than planned but I wouldn’t totally throw it out. But that’s just my teaching/parenting style. We faced this with Toulouse-Lautrec. DD didn’t enjoy his art. But we stuck with it — for 2 or 3 weeks. We do daily art study rather than one print per week. I don’t think you (or the children) necessarily have to like the art to study it. But it does help.
Maybe get her input on the next selection. We all have our own tastes in art. Find someone she enjoys to get some momentum for artist study. You’d hate for her to totally dislike it. 🙁
My children have really enjoyed studying Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. We of course listen to the CD and try to envision each season as we listen to each of the four songs. And we also listened to an interesting story (book on CD) about Vivaldi called ” Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery” that’s put out by classical kids. The Four Season’s is appropriate of course any time of the year, but we enjoy listening to “Autumn” and “Winter” the most, so this is of course, the time of the year to study them and enjoy them!! For art, I recently discovered a beautiful painting by Mary Cassatt called Autumn, and had my children use it for picture study, and my oldest wrote a narration on what he thought the woman in the painting was perhaps thinking about, and the scenery around her. This of course lead us to further study her art, and I found an excellent oversized art book at a local bookstore with most of her paintings in it for $5.00!!!! They were having an art sale! This worked out great because we had studied other impressionist painters last year, Monet, and Renoir. So they were already very familiar with this style of painting, and there is ALOT of resources out there on Claude Monet too, and that is why I chose to start out with him. We also check out lots of books about the artists/musicians at the library as well that we read aloud. By the way, I like the tea time idea that Angie sent in too! My girls would enjoy that!
Christie, thank you so much for your advice! I was lost as to where to start our picture study, and a friend told me to flip through an art book and get a general idea of what my daughter likes. She chose a couple pieces, including some impressionists. Then I got stuck on who to study; so I got some impressionist books at the library. I’m going to have her choose (or maybe I will since I really like the style as well!) and go from there. What I really liked was your idea to study The Four Seasons! That would go fantastically (is that a real word?!) with what I want to do.
I also like the idea of the tea party as I have 2 young daughters; so thank you, Angie! I would also like to thank Lori for her suggestion to visit Love to Learn Place! I have found a wealth of info on that site pertaining to music/pic study, as well as several other resources! I am really enjoying this exchange! I am learning so much from everyone! It is a great blessing! I just wish we lived near each other in order to meet!
Faith, That would be great to live closer to one another! I know I have never personally met ANY mom’s in our homeschool groups locally that do CM! They all seem to have quite a wrong idea of what CM is all about! But it is so good that we can exchange ideas here anyway!
Wow! After reaading all these wonderful posts I think I am going to change what we are going to do. As I said before we start again in January and I love the idea of adding classical music to our “Tuesday Teas” (poetry reading) and the coffee table art book sounds fantastic! Thanks for all the links I’ve seen them all…that’s why I’m changing my plans! You folks are fantastic! Do any of you live in Houston?