Building On Picture Study: Part Two

Last Monday I posted Part One of this blog entry about developing art appreciation by using picture study. In Part Two I will give you some steps to build on as your family goes beyond picture study. Art appreciation is more of a lifelong journey. It is not like math where once you have mastered it you can move on. A study of art can follow your child long into adulthood and bring much joy. These reflections are drawn from our family's journey so far and I hope they will help you with some ideas to apply in your family.

Lay the foundation with picture study:
This is as simple as enjoying a painting, closely observing the details and style, and then expressing in words what you see in the painting. We study a few paintings by the same artist before we move onto the next one. Using this simple method, we always have something fresh to look at and to enjoy.

Start to group the artist by time periods and styles:
As the years go by, we follow up our picture study by grouping artists by time period. You can study a few Impressionists side by side, looking for similarities. You can gather artists from the Italian Renaissance period and see how they compare in subject and style. Keep an artist timeline in your notebook or on the wall. Add to your timeline from year to year. Using Child-Size Masterpieces is a great way to easily accomplish this step in art appreciation. Of course, you can include any artist your family is interested in learning about and you do not need to particularly worry about order or time period. If you are set on studying artists chronologically, you can use my Harmony Fine Arts plans to have a schedule all written out using the four year cycle of history.

Art copywork:
Begin to sketch out complete or partial paintings after your picture study time. Help your child to begin to see shapes and colors as you work through a how to draw plan. Use art copywork as an exercise in putting into practice the skills you are learning in your drawing instruction. (I always suggest introducing Drawing With Children and Mark Kistler's Draw Squad books before the age of nine.) The product in art copywork is not meant to be an exact replica of the painting, but it is a way to practice seeing the artwork on a different level. I think of art copywork as a tool in training the eye to see. Here is a blog entry that shows you a little more step by step how we use art copywork in our art appreciation: Great Reproductions

Develop skills with various art media:
Introduce new media one at a time and then let your children explore. Progress from less messy to the messy if you want to: crayons, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, markers, chalk, tube watercolors, oil pastels, acrylic paints, oil paints. There is no reason younger children can't use real paints if you work alongside them and train them with the proper techniques for using and then cleaning the paints up afterward.



Visit museums and exhibits:
If all you ever do is look at art on the computer screen or in a book, you are going to miss out on a huge part of the joy of learning about and appreciating great art. It can be such a rewarding experience and worth all the effort to get your children up close to a painting in real life. When your child sees a painting they have studied hanging up on a gallery wall, it is an experience they will remember for a long time. It is sort of like meeting an old friend. The first time I remember this happening with my boys is still fresh in my mind. We traveled to San Francisco to see a whole exhibit of Claude Monet's paintings. The minute they saw his Water Lilies painting and how LARGE it was....they were in awe. They studied the brushstrokes, color combinations, and the gloppy paints put thickly on the canvas. It was a moment.

Lots of time for free exploring with art materials:
Make the art supplies readily available for everyday use. There is no greater way to generate enthusiasm than to have real art supplies on hand for your children to experiment with during their free time. It does take some effort and organization to make this sort of activity available on a regular basis, but in our home it is one that has been worth every ounce of effort. Yes, we have had messes and spills on occasion, but it really is all a part of the learning process. When your walls are filled up with child-made art, you will not be sorry you made room for a few messes.

Offer opportunities for other areas of creative work:
As your children grow, their areas of interest will expand. Photography, video making, ceramics, graphic arts, scrapbooking, model building, jewelry making, sewing, and so many other opportunities bring the whole artistic creative world alive for our children. You do not need to do it all at once. There are many years for you to build up the creative juices and the activities that you offer in your home. Build a creative fire, it lasts long after your formal homeschooling is done. Each child is different and if you are open to the possibilities, art will enrich your lives in ways you never dreamed of.

Don't stop at picture study once you have that habit established in your family. Take it a few steps at a time. Resist the need to keep it neat and tidy. Keep the creativity rolling!

I have another installment in this series rattling around in my brain. It pertains more to high school students and art, but I think you will be interested in hearing how we have returned to picture study in high school and how it has helped keep our days balanced. Look for Part Three in this series next week.

You may wish to read my post: Artist Study Using Notebooking Pages

Sketch Tuesday: Sewing Box

Last week's assignment was to sketch something that blows in the wind. This seemed hard at first, but we enjoyed the challenge after brainstorming some ideas. I love your interpretations of this assignment!

Here is your slideshow: Something That Blows in the Wind.

This week's assignment, due Monday, April 5th: Sketch something you find in a sewing box or the sewing box itself.

As always, everyone is welcome to sketch and if you send in your sketches by Monday, April 5th they will be included in the slideshow on Tuesday morning. Please send your sketches to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com.

Please remember that the images need to be in jpg format so that I can easily upload them to Flickr for the slideshow. Also, if you find that I have not included a sketch you sent in, please email me right away so I can fix my mistake.

Hope you have a great week!
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

So What Do We Do After Picture Study? Part One

The last few weeks have been filled with thinking about art...art appreciation with picture study, art appreciation with artist study, art skills, art projects, art supplies, art FUN. Now it is time to think about making plans for my sons.

This is a glorious time for my brain and my heart. I am loving the process of really drilling down through all the options to make my boys' last few years of official homeschooling filled with art they will love. You would think that with all of the art plans floating around my computer's hard drive that I would have one plan that would fill the need, but after looking seriously into what I have left planned for high school I couldn't find anything that was "just right".

This means I get to pull some fresh ideas from my shelves and from my bookmarks for both Mr. A and Mr. B who seem to be heading in different directions as far as art interests. Mr. A doesn't have as much time in his daily schedule next year (12th grade) for going too deeply into art courses, but he still assures me that he wants to have some art plans available to make use of time he can carve out of his busy day. Mr. B is going to be saturated in art-related topics next year (11th grade) since he seems to have a leaning towards the creative.

As I normally do when I am planning art, I spend lots of time preparing my heart, thinking about ways to make our home more creative, finding ways to build on what we have already done, and then discussing with each of the boys their thoughts. Here is what they expressed to me during our talks:

• They enjoy picture study and really getting to know an artist.
• They like getting to pick an artist to study on their own and also picking their own artwork to view.
• They still think that keeping a notebook with prints and their own short artist's biographies is a meaningful activity.
• One son wants to focus on follow-up of picture study with art copywork at his own pace and with his own choice of art media.
• One son wants to branch out and after a short picture study to then have some projects lined up to go deeper into the artist's style or his media

So what do you do after picture study? This activity has been the backbone of our art appreciation plans for many, many years. If picture study was all we had ever done in our family, we would have developed a love for great artwork. But now looking back, I can see how building on picture study has enriched the experience in many ways.

I am going to share with you my original art goals that I wrote about eight years ago.

Art Appreciation goals:

• 1. Be familiar with and able to identify at least 30 major works of art by the end of high school. (artist's name, title of the painting, and the time period) This would be approx. 4 pieces per year between 4th and 12th grades.
• 2. Be able to view a painting and discuss the elements of the painting.
• 3. Be familiar with the major periods of art in order to place a piece chronologically on a timeline.

I look at the humble beginnings of our art appreciation study and it makes me feel really good inside knowing that we have achieved and surpassed my original goals. This whole process started off simply and has grown from those little seeds planted with picture study. For more information on how to include picture study with your children, you may be interested in reading this blog entry: Art Appreciation Starting Point.

I have a second part to this post that I will put up on Wednesday for you to read. In that post I will share how we have built on the foundation of picture study over the years so you can glean some ideas for your children.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Narration in Our High School Plans

Narration:
Just tell me about something you found interesting, either orally or in writing.

Some things never change and narration in our family is pretty much the same today as it was when the boys were in middle school or even before. Some narration is spontaneous and some is prompted, but in the end it is all good.

I think in our family narration comes very naturally, spending so much time together and being involved in each other's lives makes talking about what we are learning much like breathing in and out...it just happens and we don't think much about it.

Sitting here this evening, trying to come up with this post that answers the question about narration in high school, I realized how much I build into our daily plans a rhythm for narration.

Examples of How Narration Looks in Our High School Day

Bible Study:
We start our day off with Bible reading, each of us shares in reading aloud the verses we are covering. After the reading is over, we go around the table and answer one of these questions:

• What do these scriptures teach us about God's qualities?
• How does this relate to the overall theme of the Bible?
• How does this affect my life?
• How can I share this with others?

We take turns answering orally in a minute or two each. Once a week we take time to choose a scripture to write about in our Bible notebooks. This is a short paragraph with our own thoughts and perhaps a plan for applying the counsel in our own lives.

Literature and History/Geography:
Narration in the high school years for these subjects is a little trickier than in the past. I often don't read their books so our discussions are slightly different than when I would either read aloud the assignments or I could keep up with all their literature and history reading. Now in high school they work independently and I have to rely on the teacher's notes from TOG or Cliffs Notes to give me the high points and some direction. Thankfully TOG does a great job of providing information for me to use when it comes time for discussions or assigning written narrations.

• Monday morning meetings gives me a time to introduce some topics we will discuss on Friday at our meeting. This few minutes on Mondays makes a big difference in the quality of the narration on Friday. Topics may include literature terms, some sort of question for them to answer, or it can be just some ideas for them to look for as they read. High school level reading needs a little more introduction than previous reading. I try to include a brief overview of each book, some points about the time period it was written, or something about the author. (Ideas gleaned from The Well-Trained Mind and How to Read a Book) I try to be specific and clear so they have a good idea of what is expected besides reading. Some books they just read and enjoy with no narration expectations.
• There is lots of informal oral narration every day as they complete assignments. I try to remain available to them at least during the morning hours.
• Wednesday in our formal writing time, I introduce a writing topic and we brainstorm ideas before they independently write a response. This is not exactly CM narration but it does the trick in our family.
  
• Daily Commonplace Book writing helps them gather thoughts to include in their writing response or for Friday's discussion.
• Sometimes we use notebook pages as a way to gather thoughts and ideas about a topic we cover in our history and literature. I consider these a form of narration.
  
• Friday meetings are all about sharing what we worked on over the past week. This is done both with written and oral narration. There is no need for quizzes or tests this way since I can directly see from their words and actions how much they gleaned from our weekly studies. It also gives me a chance to hear from them how their studies are going and I can add or subtract from my future plans if I see a need.
  

Our Monday meetings are rarely more than thirty minutes long and our Friday meetings can be as long as forty-five minutes depending on how in depth we go over our literature, history, geography, poetry, etc. The formal writing time on Wednesday with me is usually about thirty minutes long and then they are off on their own to start or continue a writing project.

Can you see how you build narration into your high school week? The basics are the same and the idea is to get them to tell back in some way what they read about and learned during their independent study time. I don't see it as a time to quiz or nag. It is a time for them to share and express their thoughts and believe me, in high school they begin to have a lot of their own thoughts.

If you are interested in how our narration has developed over the years, here is an entry: A System of Narration.

Also here is another entry I wrote about how to include CM style narrations along with Tapestry of Grace: CM and TOG Narrations.

My best advice for developing good narration skills in high school is to work on those skills as you grow them up through the younger grades. You also need to be available for all those informal narration times that pop up during the day. I will even sit down next to one of my sons as they read and ask them to read aloud a section from where they are in the book. This always prompts some sort of discussion when they are done. Try this with any subject they are working on and see what happens....informal narration.

This completes another post in my series answering questions from readers. I still have quite a few to go so if you are waiting on a response....please be patient. I am in the midst of planning next year's school design and it is taking a lot of brain power. :)

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

New Spring Series Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation

I realized this morning that I did not announce my new ebook on this blog yet! I know that many of you used the Winter Series Ebook for your art and music appreciation this past season and I wanted to make sure you saw the new ebook for spring.

I have totally ramped up the art and music appreciation for this ebook and you will not be disappointed. Even if you did not use the nature study part of this ebook, you would be getting three month's worth of art and music appreciation ideas to use with your children at a reasonable price. The artists featured are Berthe Morisot, Albert Bierstadt, and Georges Seurat.
The featured composers are Franz Schubert, Maurice Ravel, and Johannes Brahms.

The new Spring Series Nature Study Ebook includes:

• 10 Outdoor Hour Challenges-6 completely new challenges and 4 continuing studies (Seasonal Tree, Weather, Cattail, and Bird). All the Outdoor Hour Challenges in this ebook are based on the Handbook of Nature Study and include page numbers and suggested learning observations. The four on-going studies are totally revamped with a new spring focus and they will inspire you to continue in your year-long studies that you started in Autumn or Winter.
• 10 Outdoor Hour Challenge notebook pages and nature journal suggestions.
  
• 3 months' worth of art and music appreciation- 3 composers and 3 artists with links, prints to view, coordinating projects, a coloring page, and notebook pages. Also included in two of the months are additional ideas for studying several instruments in the orchestra along with your listening time.
• Ideas for field trips other than your normal Outdoor Hour Challenge backyard adventures.
• Links for further enrichment for each Outdoor Hour Challenge, artist study, and composer study.
• Complete list of resources and instructions to get started with this ebook.
• 50 pages
  

You will have a complete plan at your fingertips for your spring nature study, art appreciation, and music study. You will need to have the Handbook of Nature Study in order to complete the nature study challenges. All of the art prints are included in the ebook and there are links to viewing them online as well. This time the three featured composers and their music are offered on one CD: Classical Music Start-Up Kit Volume Two. You can choose to purchase this CD for convenience or use the online links to listen to the music suggested in the music appreciation plans. I have aimed to keep these challenges and studies as simple as possible with very few additional resources needed.

When you receive your ebook, you will receive information on which tracks you can buy separately if you wish to keep your costs down.

Please realize that the challenges will still be offered for free on my blog over ten weeks, starting Friday, April 2nd. The ebook gathers the challenges all into one easy to use resource along with the custom notebook pages. If you purchase the book now, you will have the complete ten week plan all at one time for you to use as you find time. The notebook pages will *not* be offered on the blog for free this time.

Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation Ebook:
Contains all the challenges, custom notebook pages for nature study as well as art and music appreciation, and three months' worth of art and music appreciation.
50 pages for $8.95.

Note: There might be a delay in you receiving the ebook in your inbox. I am emailing each book out myself and the delay can be up to 12 hours. Also, I will be emailing the book to the email address on your Paypal.com account.

Please note: The spring themed art and music appreciation plans and notebook pages are only available with the Spring Nature Study Ebook above.

Spring Series Sample

Giveaway!
Leave a comment on this blog entry and you will have a chance to win one of six different items I have up for grabs.

• One Hearts and Trees Winter/Spring Kits! Worth $11.95
• One Clouds in Art Mini Unit from Hearts and Trees! Worth $4.95
• One Mammals Lapbook kit from Hearts and Trees. Worth $3.95
• One Outdoor Hour Challenge Magnets from Cafe Press. Worth $3.99
• One Outdoor Hour Challenge Garden Flowers and Plants Ebooks! Worth $6.95
• One Outdoor Hour Challenge Crop Plants Notebook Pages Ebook. Worth $2.50

Leave a comment by Friday, March 26th at Noon PST and you will be entered for the giveaway. For additional ways to enter, see the ideas below. Please make sure I have a way to reach you if you win one of the prizes in the giveaway. If you leave an anonymous comment, you will need to leave your email address or I will not know how to get a hold of you.

If you would like an additional entry, please leave me the link to your blog where you mention this new ebook and the link to this post.

If you do not have a blog, you can spread the word on a bulletin board or a Yahoo group if you would like and then leave me a comment letting me know you do so for an additional entry.

If you have any questions, please email me or leave a comment.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sketch Tuesday: Blowing in the Wind

Last week the assignment was to sketch a spring flower....absolutely loved these sketches! I think all of us are ready for some spring weather and some spring color. Thanks for all the sketches this week and for making me smile.

Here is your slideshow: Spring Blooms

This week's assignment, due Monday, March 29th : Sketch something that blows in the wind.

Everyone is welcome to sketch and there is no need to sign up before you participate. Please send in your sketches by Monday, March 29th and I will include them in Tuesday's slideshow. Sketches should be send to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com. Please remember that the images need to be in jpg format so that I can easily upload them to Flickr for the slideshow.

Thanks for everyone's participation this week.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Finding Time for Nature Study, Art, Music, Poetry, and PE in High School

Recently on the Simply Charlotte Mason blog, they posted the first article in their series about using the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling through high school. If you have not read the complete article, I highly recommend popping over there and reading the entire entry: Basic Mainstays.

I am eager to read the complete series, but I found this part of the first post especially gratifying:

• Variety of Subjects

  “Give children a wide range of subjects” (Vol. 3, p. 162). A wide variety of subjects is the first mainstay. We tend to agree with this principle for younger children, but for some reason once a student hits the teen-age years, it’s tempting to focus only on the academics that are required by law or college entrance exams. This tendency does our children a great disservice.

  In the high school years, we should continue giving our children a wide variety of subjects, a broad curriculum that includes art, music, nature study, poetry, and handicrafts. These subjects are the ones that feed our children’s souls and develop them as whole persons.

  So don’t get caught up in a narrow vision of just equipping your child to make a living. “The function of education is not to give technical skill but to develop a person; the more of a person, the better the work of whatever kind” (Vol. 6, p. 147).

I agree wholeheartedly with the thinking stated in this quote and I find that whenever I waver about choosing courses and activities for my boys, I remind myself of their need to be "more of a person". As our high school years are ticking by, I see how making small adjustments in my plans can provide a better balance of subjects that fit my goals and my boys' personalities. Finding time for nature study, art and music appreciation, poetry reading, and physical education has provided the balance my boys crave in their high school years. These subjects provide a sort of a relief valve in their day.

How To Make Time: My Suggestions

First of all, I put nature study, art and music appreciation, poetry and physical education on the radar screen when I am planning our days and weeks. Keeping these subjects in mind at the beginning of the planning helps them have a spot on the end schedule.

Make them a priority and not an "extra".

Nature Study: Combine this with your study of science by choosing topics that may correlate with your course of study. Use the Handbook of Nature Study and other living books and biographies to liven up your normal textbook work. Include time each week for an outdoor activity with your children and get out of the house with them. This has become my special time with my teens as we adventure outdoors together, observe birds throughout the year, or work in the garden together. Make nature study something you look forward to doing together.

Art and Music Appreciation: One 45 minute period each week is enough to include these studies in your high school schedule. I have found that combining art and music appreciation with our history study has been a snap, greatly enriching the somewhat drier aspects of history. Don't be fooled into thinking that your teen has no interest in classical music or paintings. Give them some say in who they will study and how they will complete the study. For more ideas, see my free plans for this year HERE. I sometimes borrow time from our history schedule to focus on a particular artist, composer, or time period.

Poetry: I regularly plan on covering one poet per term with my high school age boys. They really enjoy the break from regular literature study, even memorizing a few lines here and there for fun.. This can be combined with your literature study time or perhaps replacing a literature time slot one day a week. This term we focused one complete week on Emily Dickinson instead of spreading it out over the term and this was a fun way to include poetry as well. Do what works for your life. (I use the same ideas for including some Shakespeare each term.)

Physical education: You need to keep it simple and make it a routine. My boys are expected to complete a set of stretching and strength building exercises four days a week and then run a mile once a week. I pretty much leave it up to them to complete these activities at a time that works in their schedule and it usually takes them 15 -20 minutes per day. The other way we include additional PE is to make it a family activity. Once a week they are required to complete a "bigger" PE activity. I make a list of acceptable activities and they get to choose: one-on-one basketball, bike riding on the trail, weightlifting with their older brother, Frisbee, or any other activity with another person. We also include family hiking time as part of their PE and they get a pass for snowboarding each winter. They plan how to fit the snowboarding in with their schoolwork. Physical education is just a regular part of our life and it does not at all feel like "schoolwork".

The key to our success in keeping these activities in our high school schedule is to keep it simple, combine them with other more academic subjects when possible, and then keep them as a priority in my mind, remembering that my aim is it make "more of a person".

Don't forget to click over and read the rest of the article on Simply Charlotte Mason.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sketch Tuesday: Spring Blooming

The assignment this week was to sketch something you see in a sporting goods store. I think this was a really great topic and there are some fantastic sketches this week. Thank you to everyone for sketching and sending in your images for the slideshow.

Here is your slideshow: Sporting Goods

This week's assignment due Monday, March 22nd, 2010:
Sketch your very best spring flower. (It can be growing in a funny place.)

Sketchers of all ages are welcome to participate. Please send in your sketches by Monday, March 22, 2010 for the slideshow. All sketches should be send to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com. Please remember that the images need to be in jpeg format so that I can easily upload them to Flickr for the slideshow.

I am looking forward to seeing what you sketch this week.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Making Apologia Science Texts Work for Our Family

For our family, the Apologia science texts have been a great fit, suiting our style and method of homeschooling. They may not be the most scholarly of texts, but my boys have been given lots to think about as they work through this series of science books. I have found them to be very friendly to a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. The texts are meaty enough on their own, but I wanted to add some life and spirit to the information with additional meaningful supplements.

Using them as a spine, I enhance our science courses with activities that make our learning more alive. Although all my children are interested in science, it is not their area of specialization so I think that using this series of texts, along with the lab work, has been academic enough. If they decide to pursue science after high school, I am confident that these texts have put down a good foundation.

It has always been important in our family to develop a great love for learning and creating a love for science is part of that goal. Charlotte Mason said that a love of learning is nurtured and fed by good ideas and a relationship with the material being presented. I have tried to apply this concept to our study of science using the Apologia texts.



If you are thinking about using their biology text, Exploring Creation with Biology, you might be interested in my suggestions for adding in more of Charlotte Mason's ideas that I share on this Squidoo Lens: Apologia Science: Exploring Creation with Biology. I also applied the same concepts to our study of Marine Biology using the Apologia text.

Any text is a tool and you can make it work to fit your child. Just because a text has a certain plan for its study, don't forget that you can adapt the plan so your children get the most out of that text.



Remain flexible:
Occasionally my youngest son gets bogged down with the "why do I have to study this" attitude when it comes to certain aspects of science...usually the lab work. When this happens we have a conference together and brainstorm some ideas to get him going again. I usually find out that it is not so much a "why do I have to do this" attitude but a "I would rather focus on this aspect of the topic" situation. We work together to get him over the hump and back on track. I think this is a step towards self-education but still with my hand in the mix. I realize that the high school age child is really trying to comprehend how what they study is related to them in some way. They get the facts, they have the context, and now they want to make it relevant by having their own "conversation" with the materials. This takes a certain amount of flexibility on my part.


Here is one idea that works to mix things up a bit when this happens:
I have my son pick one main idea from a module and do research about it instead of the module work. He loves it when I let him do this. He still reads the text and then comes up with a few ideas to look up on the internet and/or at the library. After the basic research, he spends a few hours saturating himself in that one topic and then he produces some sort of follow up project to present to me at the end of the module.

The project could be a poster, a Powerpoint presentation, an essay, some nature journals, or an oral report. He uses the project to demonstrate that he has a grasp of the science concept and that he has made some sort of connection to the ideas presented in the topic. Learning is more fun this way and allowing a creative product at the end instead of a test is refreshing for all involved. The end product gives his ideas and thinking a shape that the whole family can enjoy experiencing when it is finished.I would rather my boys had a notebook full of diagrams, sketches, lab sheets, and notes that mean something to them rather than a 100% on a test that perhaps doesn't reflect what they did or did not learn.


Since we are not striving for complete knowledge of any area of science in our homeschooling, but rather to arouse interest and a love for science, these ideas work well in our family. I realize there will be "holes" to fill in the future if needed and I can live with that. My job is not to fill them up with lots and lots of knowledge but to spark a love for learning that will carry over into their adult life where they can self-educate or take additional classes to fill in where they are interested.


Next year we will be tackling Exploring Creation with Chemistry together. I used this text with my oldest son a number of years ago, before Charlotte Mason entered my life. I am anxious to start brainstorming some fresh ideas to go along with this hefty text. (Just a note to those paying attention: We have mixed up the usual science sequence and left a study of chemistry for last. No particular reason except that I wasn't mentally prepared to offer chemistry until now.)

There is one last thing I would like to share with you. If you have younger children, I have a book to suggest to use alongside your elementary and middle school science Apologia texts.


Science Arts is a wonderful supplement to any science program. We have used this book over the years as a fun way to mix up science and art, also to balance out a more academic text. It uses art projects to present and enhance real science topics. Click over to the Amazon.com link and you can view the table of contents. There are numerous areas of science that it covers and you will find it a great tool to have on your science/art shelf.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

One last note: I read a lot about the debate over Apologia and their take on evolution and the young earth/old earth teachings. I look at it this way: I offer my boys the Apologia texts with supplements that teach even further about these topics from different points of view. We have read The Origin of Species, Darwin's Black Box, and several other books that present varying sides of this debate. We *talk* a lot about these things in connection with our Bible study and our faith. I hope and pray that my children, all four of them, will have the skills and ability to decide using evidence what they believe and how this relates to their relationship to the Creator of the universe. They know where I stand and they know other views as well. I do not mean to spark a debate here on my blog but just to briefly address the negative take on all the Apologia Science texts.

Netflix: Gives our Plans a Little Pizzazz

In our homeschool journey, we enjoy making things more real with DVDs from Netflix. Our World Geography and Cultures course is so much better with the occasional video to bring things to a different level for my boys.

We often follow up our literature reading with a video version and then compare.

This week we watched Cry the Beloved Country with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. My high school aged sons thought it was a powerful adaptation of the book. This book and DVD offers a gritty topic with many things to discuss. I would not suggest it for little ones.


Here is a link to Netflix where you can watch the movie trailer:Cry the Beloved Country

Another recent DVD that touched our hearts was God Grew Tired of Us. It made the people of Africa, modern day Africa, real people with real faces and real problems. The spirit of the individuals touched us deeply.

God Grew Tired of Us

I usually just do a quick search on Netflix with the book name or country name and I get a whole list of DVDs to choose from. I tend to check the previews and then do an internet search for appropriateness before I offer it to the boys.

One caution for the list I have in the image above: Globe Trekkers is NOT always appropriate for children. I usuall preview the DVD before I let my high school age sons view. (The Amsterdam DVD included topics I did not want to share with them during our geography time so I marked the sections we would watch together.)

I find Rick Steves travel DVDs to be helpful but we don't usually watch the whole episode. I like to give them a taste of the country but not bore them to death with lots of details.

I also don't like to include more than one DVD per week. I tend to choose just one selection and we don't always get to it during that particular week. (Sometimes I forget to add it to the queue on Netflix.....so we just watch it later when we have time.)

Here is another DVD from the African country of Ghana that we really enjoyed.

This was wonderful on so many levels. Emmanuel's Gift.

Don't forget the resources available on Netflix when you are planning. They are a wonderful way to break up the more academic side of high school history, geography, and literature.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Why Aren't You Finishing the Four Year Cycle of History in High School?

"The logical way to tell a story is to begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end. Any story makes less sense when learned in bits and pieces."
The Well-Trained Mind, page 105 (2004 edition)

I embraced the four year cycle of history years ago when we started with The Well-Trained Mind format of homeschooling. I liked the tidy way it kept us going forward through time and it gave a shape to our history, literature, art, and music appreciation.

In case you are not familiar with the four year cycles:
Ancients 6000 BC – AD 400
Medieval/Early Renaissance 400-1600
Late Renaissance/Early Modern 1600-1850
Modern 1850-present

My sons were in the 4th and 5th grades at that time we started the cycle and we started off with them working together using resources suggested in The Well-Trained Mind, including the Story of the World. This worked well for our family for a couple of years. At that point I was introduced to Tapestry of Grace and I thought it would be helpful in organizing classical resources at different levels of study for my two boys. (I was tired of pulling it all together on my own.)

Now, we are definitely a mix of both classical homeschooling ideas and Charlotte Mason's ideas as far as how our day to day homeschooling looks. I don't stick strictly to any one way of homeschooling and at this point I couldn't tell you which way I lean farther........Charlotte Mason mornings and Project based afternoons would be the best description of what we look like at this point.

Below is more information that you probably need, but it shows how we year by year have used TWTM and TOG and their different levels for our homeschooling.

Our History Sequence
(Another reason this may be helpful is for you to see how I shaped our homeschooling over the years. I am not one that started with one method or curricula and stuck with it for many, many years. I use what seems to work at the time. I know there are moms that feel like jumping around is going to be harmful to their children, but in our case it has worked out just fine.)

Mr. A:

• 5th: Year 1 Sonlight Core 6: World History Part 1 (with TWTM Logic Level resources and The Story of the World)
• 6th: Year 2 TWTM Logic Level resources
• 7th: Year 3 Started TOG D Level
• 8th: Year 4 TOG D Level
• 9th: Year 1 TOG R Level
• 10th: Year 2 TOG R Level
• Current Year-11th: World Geography (Year 3 TOG R Level and TWTM R Level for literature, highly customized)
• 12th: Govt and Econ (Year 4 TOG R Level and TWTM R Level for literature)

Mr B:

• 4th: Year 1 Sonlight Core 6: World History Part 1 (with TWTM Logic Level resources and The Story of the World)
• 5th: Year 2 TWTM Logic Level resources
• 6th: Year 3 TOG D Level
• 7th: Year 4 TOG D Level
• 8th: American History using HEO 9 (My history buff wanted to take a year to focus on this period of history and there was room in his overall school schedule to allow it.)
  
• 9th: Year 2 TOG R Level
• Current Year-10th: World Geography (Year 3 TOG R Level and TWTM R Level using literature, research, and writing instead of full-blown study of history)
• 11th: Year 1 TOG R Level (This is also his choice since I was ready to skip it and hop right into Year 4 in the cycle. He wants to spend some more time in the Ancient time period to get his Bible chronology more firmly established.)
  
• 12th: Govt and Econ (Year 4 TOG R Level and TWTM R Level using literature, research, and writing instead of full-blown study of history)

As you can see, we will have worked through the four-year history cycle two times since we started way back in 5th/4th grades. I have adapted the cycle for my youngest because of maturity level and interests since he is a young schooler....he is 14 and in 10th grade. Academically it has worked well for him to stick with his brother most of the time in his history and literature.

Hopefully this clears up the questions about "taking a year off" for World Geography in high school. We really haven't taken much of a year off from history but rather rearranged our years to allow time for an additional study of geography. We are still covering the history time period with our literature, research, and writing assignments. It was and excellent decision for our family.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Just a note: Prior to starting with TWTM and TOG, we used Sonlight curriculum: Core 2, 3, and 4.

Sketch Tuesday: Sports Time

Last week's assignment was to sketch something you find in the forest. I love it when I am pleasantly surprised at the creativity shown in the sketches. Great ideas this week.

Here is your slideshow: In the Forest

This week's assignment, due Monday, March 15th: Sketch something you find in a sporting goods store.

Sketches are due Monday, March 15th for the Tuesday morning slideshow. Send in your sketches to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com. Remember that all sketchers are welcome participate...including moms and dads. No need to sign up for Sketch Tuesday.

Just a note: There have been a few occasions lately where I have inadvertently left a sketch out of the slideshow. With as many sketches as I receive each week, there are bound to be slip-ups from time to time. Please email me ASAP if you notice your sketch is left out of the slideshow. sketchtuesday@yahoo.com

Have a great week!
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

How Do You Teach the Hard Stuff?

This week I have been mentoring a few moms with their high school plans. We email back and forth and although it may seem as if they are the ones benefiting from my words, I realize that with each email I am refining my own homeschooling philosophy.

They challenge me with their questions: How is this like Charlotte Mason? Why do you give exams and grades? How do you make narration seem like high school? Where do you find time for nature study, art, poetry, music appreciation, and PE? Why don't you use TOG's Worldview selections? How do you decide on resources? Why aren't you finishing the four year cycle of history in high school? How do you teach the hard stuff?

These are the tough questions that I have wrestling with for the last few years and I will continue to be challenged by in the coming years. How I answer each question is as individual and unique to our family as you can imagine. The question isn't always answered in the same way with each child either.

I thought I could take each question and answer them one at a time on my blog for anyone who is interested in reading my responses.

Here is the first one:
How do you teach the hard stuff?

So why is teaching high school hard? I will illustrate.

Think back to when you were teaching your child to read. It was difficult and took some effort to find ways that helped your particular child get the hang of phonics and sounding words out. You played games and practiced and modeled, eventually they learned to read. Now, think about teaching a subject like physics. You may or may not have taken a physics course in your lifetime and even worse, you may not even *like* physics or science. Now you are faced with offering a physics course to your high schooler. Where do you even begin? With teaching a child to read, you had a base and an understanding to get you going and lots of age appropriate materials to choose from. Better yet, you had lots of other moms teaching the same thing that could offer loads of advice and direction. Physics, not so much. There are several programs out there that will help with DVDs and great materials, but if you are like me, you are feeling a little like you are shooting in the dark as far as helping them with the nuts and bolts of physics.

Sigh.


The saving grace of the whole matter is if you have taken your time and diligently set in place good study habits, your children will not need you to "teach" them anymore. I am so glad that my boys are able to read, process, and grapple with hard topics all on their own. I am more of a mentor and a coach when it comes to the hard stuff. Not surprisingly, I think they are actually better students when I stay out of the way and keep my opinion about how "hard" things are to myself. They have become better researchers and find information all on their own when necessary.

Here I am three years down the road in our high school years and I am becoming less stressed about my feelings of discomfort about teaching the hard stuff. I know now that it does not all depend on my skills as a teacher or even my interest in a course that will make it successful. My job is different than it was when I was teaching reading skills all those years ago. They needed me to hold their hand and lead the way back then. Now, I am on the road with them as a fellow student for the majority of subjects. How exciting is that?

My best advice to those that are facing the high school years: Smile and take a deep breath! You can never anticipate all the great things that will happen as you adventure into this new chapter in your homeschool. The pages are blank, the opportunities are endless, and together with your children you can create a wonderful experience.

For families that are striving to stick with a Charlotte Mason style high school program, I read on the Simple Charlotte Mason blog that they are coming out with a whole series of articles on how to do just that very thing in a few weeks! Boy do I wish they would have written those four years ago!

Tackle difficult subjects as they arise and remember that there are lots of great materials out there to help you find the way. Don't forget to work on good study habits along the way!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sketch Tuesday: In the Forest

Lots and lots of red in my inbox this week! Thank you so much for making this slideshow a success.

Here is your slideshow: Red Like A....




This week's assignment, due Monday, March 8th, 2010: Sketch something you see in a forest.

Make your sketches and send them in to: sketchtuesday@yahoo.com. All sketchers are welcome....all ages. No need to sign up and you can participate as much or as little as you like.

Thanks for your support,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom