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Art and Music
Art Appreciation
Even when our son was a
preschooler, he was captivated by classic paintings and
artwork. We would check out thick Art books from the
library, and he would lovingly leaf through the pages of
Rembrandt, Durer, and Michelangelo. In elementary
school, we thought he would become an art historian
because he would commit the names of artwork to memory
and quickly amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of some of
his favorites, like Escher, Magritte, and African and
Noh masks. When we were still in Chicago, we made
frequent visits to the Chicago Art Institute, and even
were allowed to go the back rooms of the museum where a
very enthusiastic museum intern gave us a personal
viewing of off-exhibit African items.
We never really had to study Art appreciation per se
with this child, because he lapped it up at an early
age. There was a period in time he also reveled in the
gargoyles at the University of Chicago, and we had a
delightful trip to meet the amazingly talented stone
carver, Walter Arnold
(stonecarver.com).
Just as in the case of the museum, we were fortunate
enough to these wonderful invitations by picking up the
phone or in the case of Mr. Arnold, contacting him by
email.
With our daughter, art appreciation was undertaken much
less formally. She preferred to do art rather than
appreciate it, but we found that she was more willing to
observe art works closely if she was trying to imitate a
style, or learn a technique.
There are many wonderful resources for art appreciation
on the Internet. Early in our homeschooling journey, we
did Picture Studies like that described here at the
PennyGardener.com.
Because our daughter loves nature and wildlife, we find
inspiration in drawing from nature. We use mostly
colored pencils, but sometimes watercolor. For more
inspiration, look at the Nature Journaling articles at
PennyGardener and
Amblesideonline.org. My
daughter also learned a lot about observation and
science from our Nature walks.
Art Projects
We do art projects
together every now and then as a family. We draw, we
sketch, we sculpt, and occasionally paint. When we don't
have anything particular to do, we may play a game based
on doodles. The idea is that someone draws a scribble,
and the other person has to make a convincing face,
animal, or object out of it. We'll load some of these
when we get a chance.
Both of our children really love animation - classic
Disney animation, and animation from Pixar. As a result,
we also let them make very simple animations - using a
program from Toon Boom, and now Flash.
Here's one of the first animations our son did with
Toon Boom:
Click
here to view animation in Flash.
Here's the first E-card our daughter made for her
grandmothers:
Click here
to view the animation in Flash.
Because like other kids, our son and daughter really
love the computer, we've wanted to make sure that they
get a view of how programs are made. They often received
E-cards from one of their grandmothers, and even these
simple animations gave them a better understanding of
what they could do with simple programming and
animation. Because our son has thought about becoming an
animator, we felt it would be important for him to do -
and not just daydream about it. He reads animation
forums, submitted his work for critique in
acmeanimation.org, and really worked to revise his first
attempts.
It have him practice with presenting a story, visual
persuasion and analysis, and a peek into what animation
looks like in the real world. He had a greater
appreciation for Animation masters in the process, too.
Music Appreciation
and Playing
Brock and I both love
classical music, so it's pretty easy for our children to
hear it. We have only dabbled with formal appreciation,
although again Charlotte Mason support groups have nice
ideas for lesson plans and lists of resources. Our son
likes orchestral and choral music, and he can
distinguish some of the composers by ear. We enjoyed
Robert Greenberg's lectures on classical music from the
Teaching Company.
Our daughter likes vocal music more than instrumental,
and she listens to a variety of genres, popular, Celtic,
folk, hymns. She's been taking vocal coaching at her
Homeschool Center, and they have concerts every
semester.
I've been teaching both children piano using Suzuki song
books. I was never trained in Suzuki, but I found the
first books an excellent introduction to playing. They
listen to pieces first, then learn the right hand all
the way through, then the left hand, and then finally
put both hands together.
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