The Flat on Cabaniss Crescent

Jim Henson

Recently when Aunt Tab was visiting we went to the Jim Henson exhibit in DC.

The kids enjoyed it even though they were only really familiar with Sesame Street.  It was nostalgic for Tab and I to remember the Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock.  After the exhibit I came home and netflixed these shows and it was fun watching them with the kids.

In the gift shop I saw this little book:

   It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider by Jim Henson

As a thank you for letting her stay with us, a few weeks later Tab sent me this book in the mail.  It is a charming little coffee table book and I pick it up here and there and read a page or two.  It is full of great little quotes that make you think and inspire you to be creative, think outside the box, and not to give up.  Jim Henson was a neat guy.  Thanks Tab for this book.

WE LOVE HAROLD!!

Last week the kids and I went to see Harold and the Purple Crayon at the Adventure Theater in Glen Echo Park.

We love Harold and have been reading the books for quite awhile.  Last November we spent almost the whole month on Harold.
Going to see the play was a treat for all of us!

I loved the theater and hope to make it back again this season for some of the other plays they will be performing.  It took almost 2 hours to drive there but the kids were so good in the car.  They are getting so much better about our long journeys (since we have long drives so often here!)

Fun Day in Baltimore with the kids

I think this is one of the best parts of being in the military and moving around as much as we do is the people we meet.  We are always reuniting with old friends, meeting new friends, and meeting friends of friends.  

The location that we are currently living in seems to be a popular area and many familiar families and old friends from previous duty stations are within an hour or two.

Last week I met up with some old friends who lived in Japan when we did.  We had babies together in the same Japanese hospital and sent them to the same Japanese pre school.  Now we are living about 2 hours apart, so it has been fun to reunite (after not seeing each other for over three years!) 

We met in Baltimore, which is about a 1.5 hour drive for both of us, maybe a bit shorter for her.

We started our day at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at a Family Concert.

Then we went to the Port Discovery Children's Museum for 4 hours!  It was great fun for all of us.

I got a bit lost on the way home...but at least we made it home safely.

Getting to Baltimore is a bit harder for me to navigate than getting to DC and it is a lot more expensive, but I still like Baltimore and look forward to exploring it more while we live so close to it.

Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations of things to do?  I think we plan to hit the science museum and the aquarium next, but besides that I am open to new ideas.

Manet Study

Back in November we studied Manet...

This was our first Manet print, Boating. 

Degas, Manet, and Cassatt were all Impressionists who painted INDOORS.  So after Manet we will spend some time studying the works of Mary Cassatt.

Our Manet Study only lasted 4 weeks, mostly because I could not find any children's books or teaching materials for children on him.  I do own several of his prints, so I just displayed 5 of them, 1 every 5 days or so. 

The Fifer was our print during Week 2.   

Lunch in the Studio and Peonies were our prints for Week 3.

                  Finally,  Claude Monet in His Floating Studio was our print for Week 4.  I figured this was a nice introduction to Monet, who we will study in February.

We took a break in December to focus on Religious Art and Christmas Art.

In January we will be in New York so we will probably take another break to go to museums. 

Then, we will get back into our Impressionist study of one artist at a time with  Mary Cassatt.

After Cassatt, we will move to Impressionists who painted OUTDOORS:

Pissaro, Renoir, Monet, and Cezanne. 

 

Time for Mozart

The past two months we have focused our attention, musically, to Mozart.

Our Sendak Study led us into it because the stories on tape were set to Mozart music.

Our library had some great kid-friendly Mozart books. Pet of the Met was probably my favorite.  Written by Don Freeman, it tells about a mouse family who lives in the Metropolitan  Opera House who attends The Magic Flute.  We listened to the story of The Magic Flute on the CD, Mozart's Magic Fantasy and then I ordered the book The Magic Flute to complete our study.

Pet of the Met led us in two different directions....the study of all Don Freeman's books (which we are currently reading) and also the study of the Opera.  We've always talked about the orchestra and music in general, but up until this point we did not talk about Opera.  We found some fun opera books about animals at the library and read them last month, along with some other music books. 

Beethoven is now in our Home

In Which we talk about The Orchestra and begin our Composer Study...

It was this print from our Degas Study that got us started with our Music Appreciation Studies. 

We started last week with these books:

Both are on a 3rd-4th grade Reading Level but had good illustrations and several facts we were able to pick out.  I will definitely return to both these books over the years.  These books introduced us to the topic of instrument families nd also the different musical eras (Honestly, a good refresher for me!)

I found this on line and it is great:

FUN KIDS MUSIC INTERACTIVE WEB SITE

Then we read my favorite book as a review:

The kids are already familiar with this book, since we have been reading it for years, but it seemed appropriate to read again this week.  For a new spin on it, we went through the book and tried to identify which music family each of the instruments belonged to.

We started listening to a Beethoven Lives Upstairs CD at Bedtime.

This book goes well with the above CD and has nice pictures for the children to study.

 

This was a funny book, but I appreciated it and the kids found amusement with it. 

The best book we read about Beethoven (for facts at least) was a Great Names book I found at our local library: Beethoven Great Composer by Ann Carew-Miller and Vitali Konstantinov.  It had many facts interwoven into a story format.  Much of it was too advanced for the kids, but they still got a lot out of it.  I also enjoyed learning from this book. I will look for this book again to read to them in future years. 

FOR GEOGRAPHY:  We learned Beethoven was born in Germany and went to school in Austria. 

Eventually I'd like to make a timeline with all the Musical Eras and plug the Composers we know onto it.  This will be a nice history lesson.  But first we have to study several composers.  We will probably do this at the end of our school year as a review.

Tonight we will read this book:

We also discovered that our favorite TV show, Little Einsteins, has a great interactive website with preschool friendly games that teach instrument recognition.  This website is so engaging for the kids.  They love it and it gives me an instant hour off to do other things!

Our composer study will continue with Beethoven for another 2 weeks.  Then we will move on to Mozart.  We will continue to talk about the orchestra, the instruments, and all the instrument families throughout the year.  Click here to see my entire Music Education Plan.

Degas Study

In Which we study not just Art, but Geography, Science, History, Family History, and Music Appreciation...

For Art Appreciation we are doing a Picture Study.  I plan to focus on one Artist with the kids for 4-6 weeks, studying a new print each week.  We are just about done with our Degas study.  Here's what we did:

WEEK 1:

Woman with Chrysanthemums

GEOGRAPHY: We talked about Degas and where he lived (Paris) We found Paris on our map.

MINI SCIENCE LESSON:  Chrysanthemum Flower.  We looked this flower up on line and practiced pronouncing it correctly.

LITERATURE: We read this book Chrysanthemum, a fun little book that just reinforced the Chrysanthemum flower and how to pronounce it correctly.  By the end of the week, the kids were saying the name of this flower just as simply as they would say a rose or a tulip.

I understand there is a movie, based on this book, and I hope to find that at our library.

WEEK 2:

This was our print.  I waited to introduce the ballet prints until the second week because I wanted to spend the first week just talking about Degas himself.  I am glad I did because with Piglet all focus went to the ballerina and ballet.

We read this book, which I picked up at a Used Book Shop this past summer:

WEEK 3:

Our print was: At the Races.

A mini-Horse Study would have been nice here.  At the time I did not think to do anything with horses, but I am sure there are some good horse books we could have read.  Also, a field trip to go horseback riding is a good idea.  Next year, when we do this study again we will have to keep that in mind.

A quick search of Amazon showed me these items: 

I really like the idea of drawing horses and that could turn into a whole new unit of it's own.  We will definitely do more with this next time we do the Degas Study (before we repeat the study we have several other Artists to learn about).

WEEK 4 and 5:

Print of the New Orleans Cotton Mills.  Degas traveled to New Orleans to visit his brothers who worked here and painted this.

GEOGRAPHY:  We traced his voyage from France to New Orleans across Atlantic Ocean on our globe. 

FAMILY HISTORY: Aunt Sapna and Uncle Sam were married in New Orleans.  We talked about their wedding and how we went to New Orleans as a family 2 years ago.  Also talked about how this is where Katrina, the big storm was.

WEEK 5 and 6:

This print was a great intro. to our Orchestra/Composer Study, which started last week. 

I found this nice little book at our library and displayed it at home for the kids to find.  It was neat for them to flip through it because they recognized many of the prints we have studied in this book.  I did not really read the details to them, as they were not interested, but they did enjoy looking at the pictures.

This week we also watched a Degas Movie that I found at the library.  This was the movie that led to my "encounter" with the librarian.  The movie was OK.  It was a little over their heads.   I will have to rent it again as they get older.  It was a HBO movie and was pretty well done and not too long.  I enjoyed it and they got a little out of it.  Tigger got that Degas had a temper and Piglet enjoyed watching the dancers.  They also recognized some prints that we studied in Degas's studio and that was neat.

WEEK 6 (this week):

One reason I chose this print to present to the kids is because it is located at the Phillips Collection in DC.  I know we will be visiting DC sometime in the near future so this will be one piece of Art they will be able to see in a real Museum.  That is my whole goal of this Picture Study: for them to recognize works of art so they will enjoy and look forward to going to museums throughout their life.

This is what we have to look forward to this week as we finish up our Degas study:

Degas Art Activity Pack

Color Your Own Degas Paintings

I ordered these items from Amazon and they should arrive any day now.

Overall, I have really enjoyed studying Degas with the kids.  They really seemed to enjoy this study and also learned quite a bit.  I learned a lot myself.   

Our next artist to focus on will be Manet.  That will start next week.

Catholic Art Study and Drawing

FOR NEXT YEAR: I am all set with our Art Study plans for this year, but this looks great for next year!

Art Masterpieces: A Liturgical Collection Looking for a simple, hands-on method to teach art appreciation? This beautiful art masterpiece collection features ten different artists. Each has been chosen to illustrate how artists make use of color, line, and contrast to produce works of art. Additionally, the collection is arranged to follow the liturgical year (monthly from September-June). For example, the pictured masterpiece by Botticelli is suggested to be displayed in January (January 1st-Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God). Collection includes art prints and a short instructional guide. Wide variety of artists: Michelangelo, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Lippi and six others. Affordable for families! 8" x 10" full color prints. $14.95 :   A Catholic How-To-Draw Andrea Helen Smith Beginning to advanced artists will enjoy creating their own masterpieces by following the step-by-step instructions in this book. This art activity allows children to draw, trace, and color over 30 inspiring Catholic subjects: Mother Mary, Nativity, Lamb of God, Monstrance, Baby Jesus, Saint Joseph, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Good Shepherd, and many more. Children will find many ways to share their drawings–and their Faith–with family and friends throughout the year. On cards, invitations, gifts, greetings, and decorations For Christmas & Easter, Get Well, Birthday & Feast Days, Sympathy, and Sacramental Celebrations 102 pages. Spiral-bound for ease of use. Softcover. Shrink-wrapped. 11" x 8-1/2" We are still working on basic handwriting and drawing shapes.  We are not ready for anything more than that yet.  But when we are (maybe this summer or next fall?) this Catholic How-to-Draw book, along with Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks will be the resources I am going to use.

Art Study

I found a neat Art game that might be fun AFTER we finish studying several artists.  The artists used in the game are all artists I plan to study with the kids, so this may be a good game for review this summer. 

I will just have to remember it!

It is available at Our Fathers House

Art Lotto, an Educational Game $11.95 Play two different versions of Art Lotto with these five collecting boards and 45 small picture cards from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Each card contains a miniature reproduction, the title of the work, the artist's name and dates. Includes paintings of Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Degas, Gorky, Matisse, Catlin, Cassatt, Picasso, Audobon, Monet, Seurat and others. Ages 4-8.

Art Study

This year the children and I are doing a picture study (Charlotte Mason style) focusing on one artist at a time for several weeks.

This is probably my favorite homeschooling activity and a simple one that I can easily continue when and if I choose to send my kids to a school.  I call it Art Study but it truly encompasses so much more than art.  We end up having mini lessons on history, geography, and even science!  We also incorporate children's literature by reading books on the artist and art in general (see my sidebar on artist and art appreciation books).

Each week a new print is presented to the children in a beautiful frame. (Over the summer I found a bunch of old prints at a used book shop for a dollar a print!).   The print is displayed by our table so we can look at it and discuss it throughout the day during all our meals.  I make the presentation of the new print on Monday a very big deal so the children get excited to see what the print will be. 

The first day we just look at it and talk about what we see.  Each meal I tell the kids a little fact about the print (Degas painted this, Degas was born in France, etc...) Then as the days go on I quiz them for fun and we see who can remember the facts.  It is like a game and they love it.  By the end of the week I flip the print over and have them describe the picture without looking at it.  Ideally, on another day they would try to draw the picture as well as possible as another activity (just a another way of describing ~ not expecting an exact replica of the artist's work) but we are not there yet.  Maybe next year.   After viewing several prints of the same artist, we will move on to a new artist. 

Last week we started our Degas study.  Our first print was:

Woman with Chrysanthemums

By the end of the week both Tigger and Pooh could tell me (without me even asking) that this was a painting by Degas who lived in France.  We went and looked at where France was on our wall map so got a little geography lesson out of this as well.  Tigger remembered that Paris was in France because of the video Madeline goes to Paris.  I was impressed with his memory and that he made that connection, especially since we had not seen the video recently. 

Tomorrow I will introduce our second Degas Print:

La Danseuse Au Bouquet

I am not really concerned with the children (or myself) memorizing the titles as much as I want them to be familiar with the actual picture and who painted it.  I want them to be able to go into museums and see familiar works and get excited about it. 

This week we will also read Degas and the Little Dancer.

One final fun thing I am doing with these prints:

Each week I am uploading an image of the print we study into Shutterfly where I am creating a little book for the kids.  This way I will be able to give them a little book with all the prints in it that we study so they can continue to be familiar with them.

A dream of mine is to someday have a big enough house where I can have an entire children's gallery where a whole room has prints displayed at their eye level.  Wouldn't that be lovely?