Help me plan Art/Music semesters please (early elementary)

[Sevilla]

I've been pondering how to structure including Art and Music in our early elementary homeschool and I've concluded that alternating by semesters would probably work best for us (and ensure it actually gets done). Right now i'm planning to do Music in the fall and Art in the spring.

 

Music:

DS is going to start Suzuki Piano in the fall and continue year round, do I need to add in anything else to a Music program besides listening to classical music on the radio and going to one or two orchestra performances for kids each year?

 

Art:

Right now we do the "Come look with me" art books (especially like the Landscape one), and some of Mary F. Kohl's art projects from her book. But I need something for the next stage. I'd love to have ideas for artists/periods/techniques OR curriculum that will plan it out for me. I have access to a vast trove of classical music through my parents - but it's far too much for me to navigate and know what to learn about when.

 

If you were planning an Art (appreciation + doing) and Music (appreciation + doing) program for early elementary, what would you include?

 

1st:

 

2nd:

 

3rd:

 

(not planning beyond this right now)

[StephanieZ]

Listening to great music along with Suzuki piano study will be super for music. If you are really inspired, you could add some Mike Venezia biographies of great musicians/composers.

 

For art, if you want it laid out, Artistic Pursuits is the best I've seen. Check it out. (There are Venezia biographies of artists, too!)

[Mrs. A]

:bigear:

[Mrs Twain]

For early elementary, as far as music and art apprectiation, I follow the course as laid out in the What Your __-Grader Needs to Know books (Hirsch). There are sections on both music and art. It has text to read aloud to your children and possible activities to do. For example, the music section discusses subjects including various types of music, different types of instruments, rhythm, traditional and patriotic songs, and various composers. After I read the section on a particular type of music or about one composer, I usually show examples from YouTube. I think YouTube is an excellent resource because the children can actually see video of musicians or orchestras playing the various types of music or instuments, or singing the songs (and it is free!). After I read the art section which discusses different styles of art and various famous artists (and which has some pictures as examples), I find other examples online or in art books I checked out from the library.

 

There are also lesson plans for the Core Knowledge Sequence which include Music and Art, which seem to be more in depth than the What Your __-Grader Needs to Know books. If you wanted more extensive instruction in these subjects, you could use these lesson plans, though it takes more time to put together the materials to use for each lesson since you have to find all of the resources yourself:

http://www.cstone.net/~bcp/BCPIntro2.htm

 

As far as doing art, I use Drawing With Children (Mona Brookes) along with the lesson plan I found here:

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/dwclp.htm

I also plan to use Artistic Pursuits after we go through Drawing With Children. I am using the drawing book first to help my kids improve their drawing skills. I think that will help them get more out of Artistic Pursuits since it is a resource that doesn't teach drawing techniques as much as how to use the various art media (pastels, etc.).

 

As far doing music, I have been going through Ready to Use Music and Reading Activities Kit (Loretta Mitchell). This book helps teach children how to read music, though you wouldn't need that if you are already doing piano.

 

HTH

[morosophe]

As far as doing art, I use Drawing With Children (Mona Brookes) along with the lesson plan I found here:

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/dwclp.htm

I also plan to use Artistic Pursuits after we go through Drawing With Children. I am using the drawing book first to help my kids improve their drawing skills. I think that will help them get more out of Artistic Pursuits since it is a resource that doesn't teach drawing techniques as much as how to use the various art media (pastels, etc.).

HTH

 

:iagree: If your child is willing to experiment with new media and has an artistic vision of what he or she wants to achieve, Artistic Pursuits is probably perfect. For my non-artistic son, it became very frustrating, although he really did enjoy playing with watercolors. (Oddly enough, he much prefers using the cheap Prang watercolor set he got from his grandmother now, although the expensive watercolor crayons were great for when he had a little less motor control. He still uses the technique of drawing with an art pencil and "coloring in" with the watercolors recommended in Artistic Pursuits, though.)

 

I don't know anything about Drawing with Children. We did get Draw Write Now to work on my son's fine motor skills (even more!) and make handwriting a little more fun for him, and he's loved it, but I wouldn't necessarily call that art. Following the advice of someone on these boards, I picked up the first year of Scott Foresman Art--it was cheap enough used on Amazon, and it does seem to give the more step-by-step instructions that my son craves, along with occasional art appreciation lessons. I'm planning on using it this next year.

 

I will say that I found the art appreciation lessons in Artistic Pursuits to be very good, with a nice mix of styles and periods covered in the first book, although I've seen people complain about the quality of the rendering.

[mhaddon]

For me just looking at the artistic books wasn't working. We would just admire them, I needed something to hold my hand and point out all the good stuff until I knew how to teach art appreciation :blush: So we are working on that now. Once we are better we will visit our art museum (free admission!) a few times as well. We do a lot of crafty type art activites as well. We will be using meet the masters as well.

 

Music we will finish the last level of kindermusik and then start DS in guitar lessons. He knows almost all the notes and all the other things that go along with reading music. One of his favorite "music" books was about Gershwin and his Rapsody in Blue, we both adore Gershwin. I need to add more classical instruction in though. Oh and Peter and the Wolf he loves and it has helped with instrument identification. We haven't looked into meet the orchastra yet.

 

It will be neat to see what else we can add in as I love both art and music!

And for grade level I'm not even sure what to say because everyone has different exposure and levls of comfort with both and I think it depends on your family and how comfortable you are teaching and how well your child learns. We started music classes when our children were 14 months, 6 months, 5 weeks, and 6 months old (in birth order).

[Cynful]

For the early years, keep it simple. Actually, I recommend that for all years. Check out AmblesideOnline for how they do their music and art appreciation or if you'd like something more laid out, check out Harmony Fine Arts.

 

I'd also recommend just getting books from the library and reading them and just listening to lots of different music/looking at lots of art. The Story of the Orchestra, A Child's Introduction to the Ballet, How Does the Show Go On - An Introduction to the Theater, Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series, plus the Come Look With Me that you are using.

 

Oh, and another wonderful resource is Classics for Kids.

 

Good luck,