Last week we finally wrapped up our studies on Vivaldi and Picasso. We were supposed to be studying them only through the month of September, but our studies actually went through October. Homeschooling is flexible, right?
I was glad we extended the study on these two since our library was closed until mid-October so we weren't able to check out any books on them until then. While it's nice to gather information online, I do love to have a few books on our artists and composers around.
For our composers' studies we are primarily using A Young Scholar's Guide to Composers, along with some printables from Practical Pages. We enjoyed reading about Vivaldi's life, coloring some pages with drawings from his story, notebooking about him and, of course, listening to his music. I usually will pop in a cd of our current composer to play while we're doing school work. It's a great background and the kids love it!Even though I couldn't find anything on Vivaldi at our library, I did find a couple of good books on Picasso. He was interesting to read about. Of course, these books were appropriate for a child. Sometimes the stories of great artists do need to be censored a bit.
We enjoyed learning more about his work and the cubist movement. We found a couple of coloring pages online for his paintings and the kids did some great notebook pages about him. I also used some of the printables from Practical Pages for this.
Our composer and artist appreciation studies are one of our favorite things. We began these last year and the kids (and me, too!) really enjoy them. And I have to say it's so rewarding to hear my 6-yr-old son request Beethoven's 9th Symphony because he likes it so much.
Do you do music and art appreciation studies in your home? I would love to hear some of your methods of teaching these things to your children.
I'm linking up today with Study of the Composers at ~a teaching heart~.
