Harmony Fine Arts Grade One: Sample Week

Harmony Fine Arts Grade One has become a popular plan for art and music appreciation for many families just getting started with these subjects in their homeschooling. As part of my effort to help more families include art and music appreciation in their weekly schedules, I would love to give you a sample week using Harmony Fine Arts Grade One, showing how to go about using the plans and making the most of the flexibility offered in the weekly plans.

I previously posted an entry on how to generally get started with any grade level of Harmony Fine Arts plans, showing how to organize your plan pages, choose resources, and then order the needed resources.

After you have your resources and art supplies ready, you can open up your weekly plans and get started. The sample pages from the Harmony Fine Arts website for Grade One are for Weeks 21-24. I will use those plans to give you an idea how to use the plans in your weekly schedule. You can actually print out the sample and have it to refer to as you read through this blog entry if you would like.

Harmony Fine Arts Grade One

Week 21
Art Appreciation: Edgar Degas

Option One

• Use the link in the notes section to view Dance Class by Edgar Degas.
• Use the suggestions on page 24 in the Appendix of the plans to complete a picture study of this painting. (You can either view the painting online or you can print out one copy for your own family's use.)

Option Two

• Read the pages in the Usborne Art Treasury covering Edgar Degas.

• Complete the oil pastel activity on the pages listed in the Usborne Art Treasury.
• To extend the lesson, use the link to access two coloring pages for Degas. (Note: The link in the sample has been updated to a current coloring page website.)

Option Three

• Use the Step 2 Level 1 card from Child-Size Masterpieces to learn the title of the Degas Painting: Two Ballerinas. Start off with a picture study of the painting and casually include the name of the painting after you are done. Sometimes, just for fun, before I gave the true name of the painting, I would ask my children to give the painting a title of their choosing.
  

• Color page 15 in Impressionist Art Masterpieces to Color: Dance Class. Use the link in Option One to view this painting online as you color.
  

One last note about art appreciation with Harmony Fine Arts: Most families complete at least two options in a week to fill out their 45 minutes of art appreciation. Completing Options 1 and 2 or Options 1 and 3 will give you a complete plan for art at this age level. If you have additional time in your week or you are using this plan with older children, you could complete all three Harmony Fine Arts Options.

Week 21
Music Appreciation: Giuseppe Verdi

• Read the pages assigned in Lives of the Musicians.
• Listen to a few selections from the CD listed or from any Verdi CD that you have access to at home. I suggest picking one piece of music to focus on and listen to each week for the four week period you are studying Verdi. In our family, we listen to our focus piece three or four times per week for the four week period. (We chose La Traviata when we listened to Verdi.)

The object at this age level is to expose your child to classical music. The story in the book gives a little background for the composer and after you read the biography, ask the child to tell you what he remembers about Giuseppe Verdi. Don't get too caught up the details at this age. I would rather you chose to listen to Verdi's music as much as possible. I want you to use any resource you have on hand so I did not pick specific pieces of music for you to listen to...have fun and listen until you find a selection you enjoy listening to with your family.

I hope this post has helped you to see how easy it is to implement Harmony Fine Arts plans in your homeschool week. I have done all the choosing and organizing of materials so you can easily find an option that works in your home.

Harmony Fine Arts Grade One is an "overview" year for art and music appreciation. You can use it with a variety of ages as an easy way to introduce child-friendly art and music in your home. If you would like more information on particular time periods covered by specific grade levels in Harmony Fine Arts, you can find a chart HERE. Here is a link to resources: HFA Grade One.

Please feel free to email at any time if you would like help choosing a plan that will fit your family best.

You can purchase Harmony Fine Arts Grade from Rainbow Resource at the discounted price of $16.25 or from my website at $19.95. You can also purchase it in ebook format for $17.44 here on my blog. 


Barb-Harmony Art Mom