the arts

My goals for my children's learning in the area of "fine art" include appreciation and familiarity of fine art and classical music. I don't really care if they know the exact name of the piece of music or exactly who wrote it, but are familiar with the tune and familiar with the composer's name. As I always enjoy a piece at the symphony more if I am familiar with it, I figure this exposure will increase their enjoyment of the arts in subsequent years as well.

Combining both famous art and classical music, Disney's Little Einsteins provides a story-line that my children enjoy and fits nicely into our morning "movie time". I don't allow the kids to watch much TV, but after Table Time while I'm getting lunch ready the 30 minutes of entertainment is much appreciated by everyone. I've found the cheapest place to purchase episodes is through iTunes for $1.99 per show.

We are also loosely following the picture study module 2 organized by Simply Charlotte Mason. I've printed on our color printer pictures by Van Gogh that were linked from Ambleside Online's Art Schedule (Van Gogh was on their list for 2008-2009 Term 3). I place these pictures on the inside door of our kitchen closet so that when we are having Table Time and throughout the day the kids can see the picture we are currently studying. Once a week we concentrate on studying the picture. I say the name and the artist and then we'll either play a game where I let them study the picture and then cover it up and ask them questions about it like "What color was the floor? Were there any flowers in the painting?" etc. or we will attempt to copy the painting with colors or paints. Last week I printed an additional copy of the picture and cut it into pieces to make a puzzle. We study each picture about a month to 6 weeks.

We are not doing anything formal in the area of composer study. I have several classical pieces from various CD's organized into playlists on my iPod by composer and sometimes while we're doing arts and crafts or eating lunch, I'll start it playing and just tell the kids, "This music was written by Vivaldi", for instance. If I'm near the iPod and can see the title I'll tell them the title of the piece. It's amazing how much they can pick up just by that simple "background music." Sometimes we play games where I will hum a little bit of a tune and let them finish it.