edeemarie Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 This is one part of homeschooling I always struggle with (meaning we seem to run out of time/energy before it gets done!). So I am looking for ideas on how to make sure we do get it done. What resources or books do you use? I am hoping to find free or at least cheaper resources. How much time do you spend on studying art and music? Do you study composers and artists? I would really like to include this part with our studies, maybe with some nice flash cards or something (I found these for artists and would love to find something similar for composers). If you could just describe what this type of studying looks like in your school maybe I could get a better idea of what I should be doing. As always, thanks so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 I am planning on adding in Beautiful Feet's Composers curriculum. We used their history of Science one and I really enjoyed it. Another option I am looking at is the one Homeschool in the Woods sells on Composers and Artist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkacademy Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 This is one part of homeschooling I always struggle with (meaning we seem to run out of time/energy before it gets done!). So I am looking for ideas on how to make sure we do get it done. What resources or books do you use? I am hoping to find free or at least cheaper resources. How much time do you spend on studying art and music? Do you study composers and artists? I would really like to include this part with our studies, maybe with some nice flash cards or something (I found these for artists and would love to find something similar for composers). If you could just describe what this type of studying looks like in your school maybe I could get a better idea of what I should be doing. As always, thanks so much! I am in the same boat, it never gets done and I don't even know how to go about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edeemarie Posted April 5, 2013 Author Share Posted April 5, 2013 I am planning on adding in Beautiful Feet's Composers curriculum. We used their history of Science one and I really enjoyed it. Another option I am looking at is the one Homeschool in the Woods sells on Composers and Artist Thank you! Those are two options I have not looked at yet. I am in the same boat, it never gets done and I don't even know how to go about it It is definitely tricky when I always feel like I am needing to add things in to what we are already doing. I have spent a lot of time researching doing CC for next year with my kids and I figure if the kids can learn something about an artist or composer in 6 minutes a week (that is how much time is spent on each new memory piece) then certainly I can get that done at some point in time! ETA: OK, I just checked out the Homeschool in the Woods packets and they look perfect! Thanks so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuckabella Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Mike Venezia has some books for artisits and composers. They are very kid-friendly. Many libraries have copies of them. Confessions of a Homeschooler has a study of artisits and composers using his books. There are also the Thomas Tapper books that are free. There are even audio files of the books read aloud on Librivox. We plan on going through some of the Thomas Tapper books and some of the Mike Venezia books in the fall. I have not purchased the Confessions of a Homeschooler Artist or Composer studies, but I have purchased other things from her and been very satisfied! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hfamous Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Look at Gentle Revolution Press. They have amazing, full size composer and artist cards. They are a publisher for young children but their cards are perfect for any age. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Friday is our art day. We do Freewrites ( I use Bravewriter) and then the rest of the morning is art. I use Harmony Fine Arts and it has been really easy and effective. I also have been using Artistic Pursuits. So example. Our plans for today. We'll pull up the HFA pdf (I'm using year 1 overview so my Kinder and 2 year old can participate too). We just do the next lesson. It has a link to an art piece to look at online, we'll discuss it informally (usually just them telling what they see, colors, shapes, lines, feelings, what they think the story is, if they like it, why or why not etc). I'll also talk about what I know about the artist and the painting. HFA has options for different activities and readings. We don't do all of them. You can color from a Dover coloring book, or read from a selected book. Just pick which you want to do. I use The Childsized Masterpieces cards. And we read the Getting To Know the World Greatest books. And we also read from the Lives of the Artists books. At the end of the month my kids have been picking their favorite piece and they recreate it, however they like. My oldest will write a short bio and place his artist/composer on a timeline in the notebook where we save all their work. Usually they use oil pastels to recreate the piece. (Not perfectly of course, it's just for fun). We also do a lesson in the afternoon from ArtPur. (They like it but I am bored top tears with it. It's redundant. Next year I'm focusing solely on DWC with my oldest since that has been neglected) For music study we just listen to music throughout the day during the month and listen to Classical Kids and read the bios. I do try to get them to recognize a composer and the name of an important piece from listening memory and we informally work on learning to identify an instrument by sound and the parts of the orchestra. With my youngest it's fun to make up a silly song to go along with a part of a music piece. HFA plans an artist and composer for a month. I always change our desktop to one of the paintings for the month. They talk about their monthly artist and composer throughout the month randomly. I may move away from Artistic Pursuits, but I will use HFA again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aspasia Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Friday is our art day. We do Freewrites ( I use Bravewriter) and then the rest of the morning is art. I use Harmony Fine Arts and it has been really easy and effective. I also have been using Artistic Pursuits. So example. Our plans for today. We'll pull up the HFA pdf (I'm using year 1 overview so my Kinder and 2 year old can participate too). We just do the next lesson. It has a link to an art piece to look at online, we'll discuss it informally (usually just them telling what they see, colors, shapes, lines, feelings, what they think the story is, if they like it, why or why not etc). I'll also talk about what I know about the artist and the painting. HFA has options for different activities and readings. We don't do all of them. You can color from a Dover coloring book, or read from a selected book. Just pick which you want to do. I use The Childsized Masterpieces cards. And we read the Getting To Know the World Greatest books. And we also read from the Lives of the Artists books. At the end of the month my kids have been picking their favorite piece and they recreate it, however they like. My oldest will write a short bio and place his artist/composer on a timeline in the notebook where we save all their work. Usually they use oil pastels to recreate the piece. (Not perfectly of course, it's just for fun). We also do a lesson in the afternoon from ArtPur. (They like it but I am bored top tears with it. It's redundant. Next year I'm focusing solely on DWC with my oldest since that has been neglected) For music study we just listen to music throughout the day during the month and listen to Classical Kids and read the bios. I do try to get them to recognize a composer and the name of an important piece from listening memory and we informally work on learning to identify an instrument by sound and the parts of the orchestra. With my youngest it's fun to make up a silly song to go along with a part of a music piece. HFA plans an artist and composer for a month. I always change our desktop to one of the paintings for the month. They talk about their monthly artist and composer throughout the month randomly. I may move away from Artistic Pursuits, but I will use HFA again. Can you talk a little more about your aversion to Artistic Pursuits? I'm about to buy it, but I don't want to waste the money if I'm going to hate it. I thought HFA relied on it quite heavily? Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. To answer OP's question, we are actually spending about nine weeks on each composer and each artist, so only four of each per year. I basically picked 24 of each and we'll go through them all in six years and then repeat. My plan is to listen to the music throughout the nine weeks (perhaps focusing on a few specific pieces, one at a time), read the bios, color in the Dover coloring books, etc. For art, I like the idea of nine weeks, because we can spend some time on specific pieces. We'll study the picture on Fridays, read bios, visit museums (we live in DC, so we have a lot of options), and I really like Walking Iris's idea of recreating a piece with oil pastels. I am planning on buying Artistic Pursuits, but we probably won't do it every week, so I think we're going to mix in some of Mark Kistler's online drawing lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esse Quam Videri Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 We LOVE the free Famous Artist/Composer Study at Practical Pages. This is how we used them this year: I printed out all Artist/Composer intro pages and hung them on the wall for the month(s) we studied that artist/composer. Then I printed out the individual art works and laminated them. We would do a CM picture study, fill out a notebook page, and then do our own replica (so for the Sistine chapel, we put butcher paper up under the kitchen table and kiddos painted their own scenes of Creation, Fall, etc.) I took photos and we made a notebook page of this as well. Every time we learned a new work, I would hold up the ones we'd already learned and kiddos would have to say the artist/name of the work (and bonus points for the year). I then made up some simple multiple choice tests that had the artist/name of the work, and after each artist I would hold up the laminated print, and the kids had to circle which it was. (This part is totally unnecessary but I was just really trying to reinforce and make sure they knew them.) We did the same for composers, except instead of a picture study they would listen through a portion of the work several times and fill out the notebook page from that site. Then I would test them later in the same way, playing the work (usually from youtube) and they had to name the composer/name/bonus points for the date. Anyways, it was FREE and they still know all the works. 100% retention. We will definitely continue it this way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 How timely - today I started Hillyer's A Child's History of Art for the second time, having gone through it with Great Girl five years ago. Its biggest drawback is the black-and-white photos; but the internet has made that fault go away completely. If anything, the tech improvements of the last five years have made it vastly easier to instantly summon up a good copy of all of the art Hillyer refers to. For instance, today was the Lascaux cave paintings. Five years ago, a little searching turned up several good-quality images from the caves. Today we took an awesome 3-D guided tour through the caves courtesy of the official Lascaux website. I like Hillyer's easy and accessible writing style; and his unfortunate obsession with race (a feature of his geography and original history texts) makes no appearance in his art book. ETA: For music, I like How to Introduce Your Child to Classical Music in 52 Easy Lessons. It is very usable for the utterly amusical, like me. I let their cello and piano teachers take care of the theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edeemarie Posted April 5, 2013 Author Share Posted April 5, 2013 You guys are awesome!!! WOW!!! I went from not knowing where to start to having to narrow down some really great choices! I really appreciate you all sharing what has worked for your families. There are some really neat resources out there:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momto2Cs Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 My (rough) plans for upcoming studies: Calvert's A Child's History of Art: Painting, alongside KinderArt's Art History lessons for hands-on Maybe: The New Augsburg's Drawing Book for art instruction Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts series (on youtube) for music appreciation Now I'm off to look at Beautiful Feet's Composers package! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Can you talk a little more about your aversion to Artistic Pursuits? I'm about to buy it, but I don't want to waste the money if I'm going to hate it. I thought HFA relied on it quite heavily? Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. Here's what made me regret buying Artistic Pursuits: it's inexcusably expensive for what it is, and there are better things that are cheaper. Want detailed study of great works with interesting and varied activities? Museums have already produced cheap (taxpayer-subsidized) materials for that - some out-of-print, but easy to find second-hand (I paid no more than a dollar for each of them): National Gallery of Art (Washington) http://www.ebay.com/ctg/National-Gallery-Art-Maura-A-Clarkin-1994-Paperback-Activity-Book-/633998 National Gallery (London) http://www.amazon.com/The-National-Gallery-Childrens-Book/dp/0901791903 Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.amazon.com/The-Metropolitan-Museum-Activity-Book/dp/0394852419 If you want a very structured, incremental art curriculum that incorporates great works, teaches concepts, and includes art project ideas, broken up into lessons and even arranged by month, for FREE, use the art section of the Baltimore Curriculum Project and get the pictures off the internet. http://www.cstone.net/~bcp/BCPIntro2.htm I've used all these resources as well as Artistic Pursuits, and I regret paying for AP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happymomofboys Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 This is one part of homeschooling I always struggle with (meaning we seem to run out of time/energy before it gets done!). So I am looking for ideas on how to make sure we do get it done. What resources or books do you use? I am hoping to find free or at least cheaper resources. How much time do you spend on studying art and music? Do you study composers and artists? I would really like to include this part with our studies, maybe with some nice flash cards or something (I found these for artists and would love to find something similar for composers). If you could just describe what this type of studying looks like in your school maybe I could get a better idea of what I should be doing. As always, thanks so much! We approach art and music a couple of different ways. I teach art, music, and P.E./Health on a rotating schedule, so we average about once a week for art and music. I alternate instruction/technique with appreciation/history. Our lessons range from 30 minutes to an hour typically, but projects can continue after school and on weekends. We do our TOG Fine Arts and activities reading and projects in addition to this. For the history/appreciation portion I have two books that I love. The first is Art: Over 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary and the second is The Encyclopedia of Music: Instruments of the Orchestra and the Great Composers. These aren't cheap, but they can be referred to all the way through high school. I try to relate the art and music history study to the time period we're covering in history. My kids are still young, so we mostly refer to the images and I read a little of the text and we talk about it and compare the art of different cultures we've studied. So far I've kept it pretty informal, but I'll start having my older son keep a notebook of artists and composers beginning next year. When they were younger, we used Themes to Remember which my younger son still loves. I also refer to Classics for Kids which features a composer each month. What we do on history/appreciation days is determined primarily on the time period being studied and what we feel like doing that day. For music instruction, my kids started with a box of Melissa and Doug instruments when they were younger and we practiced rhythm and singing. As they've gotten older, we've started recorder lessons using the Usborne First Book of the Recorder and the Nine-Note Recorder Method. Art instruction for us has consisted of everything from Draw and Write Through History, Mark Kistler's Online Drawing Lessons, and Hands and Hearts History Kits, to free expression with finger paints or modeling clay. It really just depends on what they want to learn and what my goals are for the year. My kids like to draw, so that's where our focus is at the moment. We also use free web resources quite a bit. I'm a fan of Easy Peasy All-in-One music and art. My boys also learned the instruments of the orchestra from Carnegie Hall's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. My goals for the grammar stage are the ability to reproduce a rhythm, sing a few simple tunes, identify the instruments of the orchestra, and demonstrate a basic understanding of music theory. I want them to be familiar with a handful of famous composers and be able to identify one or more pieces of their music by listening. I want them to understand the basic elements and principles of art and have experience using various media for artistic expression. I want them to be familiar with the type of art produced by different civilizations throughout history and its purpose within the culture, and to be familiar with a few famous artists and be able to identify some of their work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmarango Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Here is a blog post about Turner (http://www.blueskiesacademy.com/2013/02/j-m-w-turner-artist-study/) that will give you an idea how we go about art appreciation. For music appreciation I have made a list of composers that tie in with our history time period. Each month I load up my iPhone with the current composer (about 60 min worth) and that is the music that we (mostly) listen to as we drive around town. This seems to be enough exposure that my children can recognize the composers' works for the most part and develop preferences for certain songs/composers. Even my 3 yo decided that he prefers Chopin over Schubert. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 I found this video on picture study very helpful: http://simplycharlottemason.com/2011/05/12/how-we-do-picture-study-picture-study-part-2/ I don't follow the method exactly...I've been using a garage sale book of famous paintings, so we have a different artist each time. In the video she mentions getting books from Barnes & Nobles bargain section or old calendars. You can also just use images off the computer. We also add in some biographies on artists and composers throughout the year (one of each every few months). Rainbow Resource has some inexpensive ones. Getting To Know the World's Greatest Artists/Composers is a popular series. We've also enjoyed the Opal Wheeler composer books. For music study, we pick a composer and read a short biography (or start a chapter book). While we are learning about the composer, I play his music throughout the week (mostly as I'm cooking or washing dishes). My goal is for them to recognize their style and some of their songs by the end of our study...we don't memorize names or years (I do like them to have a general idea of when they lived though). I have an inexpensive CD set that my mom gave me, but you can usually find a classical CD for $5 or less...I imagine there are very inexpensive (or free) mp3 files online, but I'm a pretty low-tech person! I spend 15 minutes on picture study and maybe another 15 minutes or so a week reading a biography. Listening to the CD just takes a few seconds to hit the play button! I'm sure we could be doing more with our artist studies, but these methods are very simple and get done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom2TheTeam Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Mike Venezia has some books for artisits and composers. They are very kid-friendly. Many libraries have copies of them. Confessions of a Homeschooler has a study of artisits and composers using his books. There are also the Thomas Tapperbooks that are free. There are even audio files of the books read aloud on Librivox. We plan on going through some of the Thomas Tapper books and some of the Mike Venezia books in the fall. I have not purchased the Confessions of a Homeschooler Artist or Composer studies, but I have purchased other things from her and been very satisfied! The Artist study on Confessions of a Homeschooler is free to download right now. It's on "special," but it was last month too. LOL. But, Brahms or someone similar was also free last month. I downloaded both and saved them to use later. I'm watching for the Composers to be the "special." Then, I'll snatch that up too. I have paid for some of her stuff too. It is nicely done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Our co-op does picture study, one artist per session. This spring, our session will have had five classes, so we've studied five works by one artist. I'm setting up for my class while the kids are doing picture study, but the way I think it works is this: the teacher passes out 8x10 pictures (public domain works are great because they're free), one for each child, face-down. When everyone has one, she has them flip them over and study them for a few minutes. Then she asks the kids to tell what they see, and they discuss the picture. She also talks about the artist's inspiration and such. She hands out a notebooking sheet with a smaller version of the picture (and its title and date), and the kids write a few sentences about what they see, what might be going on, etc. Everyone takes home their notebooking sheets (she reads them during one of the other classes, writes a nice compliment on each one, and gives them back to us), and an 8x10; we can post the 8x10s at home to look at further during the week. By the end of the session, the kids have a good feel for the artist's style. We've done picture study at home too (although my kids scowl adorably and tell me I don't do it like their co-op teacher, LOL); we pass the picture around, so that everyone gets to see it, and when everyone's had a turn, we discuss it (and then we post it to look at more). This is nice because we get to hear Daddy's perspective. In those cases, no writing is generated, but we still discuss the works. A simple biography of an artist (or composer) would be good too. For music study, we listen to a lot of music in the car, or the kids listen while falling asleep. In theory, we will also fill out a notebooking sheet that includes the title, artist, date, style of music, and the kid's impressions of the music; in reality, we're bad about that. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 I started majorly scaling back, last fall(?) or maybe last summer. I'm narrowing more and more into what I want to prioritize in all subjects. I need to get real about what can get accomplished. For the first time I'm PLANNING holes. Yup. Planning them! All I'm trying to do now is lay a net with small enough holes, that future self-education and other teachers will have SOMETHING strong to build on, in the areas that students choose to pursue. I use the original series of What Your _ Grader Needs to Know as my core art and music. The revised series is better if you are only using the series for art and music. I already have the original series for the other subjects, though, and the art and music are integrated to those lessons, so they are good enough. These books complement each other nicely. I was teaching 3D drawing, blending and shading, but have recently abandoned that and am planning on just using the Needs to Know books and teaching the cartoony drawing in the below books. Draw Write Now Using Color in Your Art (the lessons can be adapted to crayons instead of paints) Ed Emberley's Funprint Drawing Book Let's Draw Happy People This book is a great option for low income families. Jumbo Book of Music We also do a lot of map drawing with National Geographic Beginner's Atlas Draw Write Now And we do some border drawing similar to Waldorf Form drawing, but we don't take it so seriously. We just make boring notebook pages look prettier or because it's soothing after a tedious or difficult drill lesson. I'm happy to assist a student in SELF_EDUCATION in art and music, but as for TEACHING, I'm scaling WAY back. Just cultural literacy from the Needs to Know books and Jumbo Book of Music and 1 dimensional crayon and pencil drawings. That's it. Oh yeah, and we do stick figures for Bible using Grapevine studies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Can you talk a little more about your aversion to Artistic Pursuits? I'm about to buy it, but I don't want to waste the money if I'm going to hate it. I thought HFA relied on it quite heavily? Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. To answer OP's question, we are actually spending about nine weeks on each composer and each artist, so only four of each per year. I basically picked 24 of each and we'll go through them all in six years and then repeat. My plan is to listen to the music throughout the nine weeks (perhaps focusing on a few specific pieces, one at a time), read the bios, color in the Dover coloring books, etc. For art, I like the idea of nine weeks, because we can spend some time on specific pieces. We'll study the picture on Fridays, read bios, visit museums (we live in DC, so we have a lot of options), and I really like Walking Iris's idea of recreating a piece with oil pastels. I am planning on buying Artistic Pursuits, but we probably won't do it every week, so I think we're going to mix in some of Mark Kistler's online drawing lessons. http://harmonyfinearts.org/grammar-stage-plans/ HFA doesn't list Artistic Pursuits as an option in the year I'm doing. But it is an option in other years. Option being the key word. HFA is laid out in weekly lessons, with various different options to complete the lesson. So in Year 1 you look at a piece online and discuss it (that's key), but there's also the options of doing extra activities. HFA is focused on appreciation more that doing art. http://harmonyfinearts.org/grammar-stage-plans/grade-1-overview-year/ Artistic Pursuits is an option in some of the other HFA levels. But it's definitely not going to be required. I'm using the K level book 1, and I just find it redundant. Watercolor, watercolor, watercolor forever. Not even *real* watercoloring but using watercolor crayon. Which are fun, but....yeah. Also there's no real logical picture study. One week's lesson has a Chagall, the next will be a De Hooch. There's very little information about the picture (either history or style) and they're so small. There's a ton of white space on the page. I'd much rather have larger pictures to look at. The activities have little to no info in regards to elements or methods. The reproductions of children's art bothers me. I would rather focus on picture study that is related. In HFA we have been learning a ton about the Impressionists and those who came directly out of that group. My kids have been learning more keeping to one topic like that , rather than jumping around in art history and style. It helps them see a progression in style. This 1st ArtPur book seems to be focused on what artists *do*. But it doesn't even do that very well. Also it is expensive, even used, for what you get. And personally I am beyond bothered by the endorsement on the back cover being written in text speak. (thx) I'm annoyed at how unprofessional it is to publish a book with text speak. I don't know if the other levels are better. Next year I'm going to do HFA2/DWC and ArtExpress with my two youngers. My oldest ds loves art and ArtPur is boring him as well. I have found him a local artist to mentor him and I'll focus on his illustration skills and leave the paints and pastels etc out for his free exploration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 My son takes music lessons, hypothetically practices every day, we listen to music recordings, take him to performances and read books about various musicians. For art, we did Atelier. It was ok but not great for me. We ultimately ended up registering him for a pottery class with other kids. We will probably keep outsourcing art. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksr5377 Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 I'm sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but I just recently discovered Simply Charlotte Mason's Picture Study Portfolio's. I am loving them because they include everything I need, which means it gets done. They're not cheap but not terrible when you take into consideration you're only to do 2-3 a year. http://simplycharlottemason.com/store/picture-study-portfolios/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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