Music Study Archives - Growing In Grace

Getting our Summer Groove

July 3, 2013Tracy

We’re several weeks into our new routine now, and loving summer! Nature walks, art, some music theory, poetry—summer school is in full swing. And thankfully, it’s all that I’d hoped and intended it to be.

I get a lot of questions about our summer school schedule, so I thought I’d share what our day looks like right now.

First of all, I’ve split our subjects and assigned them on different days. For instance, we do art and nature study one day; we do music and perhaps some poetry on another day; we do Life of Fred everyday. In all, we do our activities for roughly an hour a day. Nothing heavy, and lots of fun mommy-time with the kids.

Every day looks a little different. This is summer. This is our break. And while I want something to structure our days, I don’t want to be so regimented we’re not getting our breather. So first thing in the morning, I send them outside to play, to take advantage of the cool mornings before everything heats up. After playing for a couple of hours, they are usually ready for some structured activities. Oldest is still doing his Reflex Math everyday, usually while I shower and finish up with Littlest. Our “summer school” usually gets started around 11 a.m. and finishes up when we get hungry, around noon-ish.

Oldest's rendition of our dog at sunset — Oldest’s rendition of our dog at sunset

One day, we took a walk and did a nature scavenger hunt (something taller than you, something smaller than your thumb, something that needs air, etc.); we also talked about the anatomy of trees and the different kinds of trees (deciduous/broadleaf and conifer/evergreen). Then we came in, cooled off, and did some art, learning to sketch with an ebony pencil.

On another day, we read Life of Fred on the front porch and then did a read-aloud together.

Another day, we practiced music together, learning notes on the scale using Lady Treble and the Seven Notes and Oldest’s recorder lesson book and Middlest’s Dora piano.

We added some extra stickers from "Lady Treble" to her Dora piano. — We added some extra stickers from “Lady Treble” to her Dora piano.

On yet another day, we went for a walk to pick different kinds of leaves, we read about the different leaf shapes and why plants need leaves, then we did leaf rubbings in our nature notebooks—and watercolored.

It’s a little structure and a lot of fun. It’s learning in a casual setting. It’s creating and exploring and enjoying summer.

Summer Unschooling

June 5, 2013Tracy

We’ve got a tradition at our house that is now 3 years in the making. Summer school is absolutely the highlight of the year. All of us can hardly wait to close the textbooks and start summer.

I started summer school at the end of Oldest’s K4 year for a few different reasons. First, we love the structure that school brings to our day. Too much unstructured play breeds chaos and bickering at my house. We’re a family that loves a routine and a regular schedule. Second, I didn’t want to spend three months forgetting what we’d just spent months to learn. I wanted something to hold it all in their little heads and to keep it growing.

Thus, summer school was born, but not an endless rhythm of the same lessons: even we need a break. Summer school is our time for nature walks, nature journals, and nature study; science and discovery; messy art and picture studies; classical music, water parties, and mud pie bakeries. It’s not at all “school” in the traditional sense. It’s not even school in the classical sense. It’s more a mixture of Charlotte Mason and unschooling, nurturing a fascination for the beauty of creation.

And our summer studies have been some of our most memorable. Middlest, who was 2 when we had our first “summer school,” loves Handel’s water music and often asks when we will have another water party. Both of the kids light up when they see a waterlily painting; it’s Monet! And the nature journals are close-companions all summer long, including on vacation trips.

So what’s on the agenda for this summer?

Mozart (some read-aloud books and a playlist on my Naxos app for my ipod)
Artistic Pursuits K-3 book 1 (snagged one on Ebay) and lots of chalk art!
Lady Treble and the Seven Notes, as well as some recorder lessons
trees and plants study (thanks to a subscriber freebie from NotebookingPages.com and My Nature Journal)

Let’s break out the swimming pool and turn up the Mozart. It’s time for summer!

Making a Mess with Art

May 1, 2013Tracy2 Comments

As our “school-year” schedule eases up, our “summer-school” schedule begins here—a mix of art and music and nature study. This will be our third summer of this routine, and it’s amazing how quickly this has become a tradition. As soon as the weather starts warming and the trees begin to bloom, our fingers get the itch for messy art.

So we kicked off the season the other day with some chalk pastels. I am a hard-core art wanna-be. I would love to be adept at painting and chalking and drawing and the like. In reality, my work rarely turns out much better than the kids. But we love it.

I’ve perused the chalk tutorials at Hodgepodge for awhile, too nervous to jump in. But finally, I bought a set of pastels and took the plunge. We did the “To the Woods” tutorial as our first study. The kids did really well, and absolutely loved it. I had prepped them in advance. You see, my Oldest is a little OCD when it comes to getting his hands dirty. I wanted to be sure he knew exactly what he was in for. He had so much fun that in the end it didn’t bother him too much to get dirty, especially with a wipe nearby.

6 year old's masterpiece — 6 year old’s masterpiece

4 year old's masterpiece — 4 year old’s masterpiece

Middlest didn’t mind the mess in the least. She got right down to it. And you should have seen her eyes light up when I mentioned that we were turning the chalk on it’s side to color parts of our picture. This is her favorite way to color, and I can’t stand a square crayon so I rarely let her partake in this treat. They both had so much fun with the project that they decided to add some flowers to their path, just wanting to try other colors and prolong the lesson.

Littlest's masterpiece and introduction to crayons — Littlest’s masterpiece and introduction to crayons

Even Littlest got in on the art time. With Mozart playing on my Naxos app on my ipod, we all got our fingers dirty in our first summer lesson of the season. And it felt, oh-so-good!

Mud Memories

July 26, 2012Tracy1 Comment

I remember the time my sister and I decided to make chocolate milk.

Our ingredients were dirt and water.

Unlike other older sisters who wisely have their younger sibling sample the fare for them, I indulged right alongside.

We both ended up with a mouthful of mud—and vivid memories.

So when Middlest came into the house with her pail of dirt and asked for some water so that she could make a cake, you bet I cringed. But then, I also couldn’t resist. After all, every child needs a mud memory, right?

I was surprised when Oldest, my neat-freak OCD child, decided to join in the fun.

And though I tried to just set them loose on their mud escapades, I soon realized that my daughter needed a little instruction in the art of mud-caking. I had to empty her pail of rocks, bark, and leaves and help her add dirt to the right consistency. She couldn’t make up her mind at first what to make. First, it was cake; then it was tea; back to chocolate cake; and finally a batch of cookies.

Oldest wanted to make a cake and keep it in his pail until it had “baked” in the sun. Then he emptied his creation into his wheelbarrow for minimal mess. But I was proud when I saw his hands caked with dirt.

Then, Oldest suggested some music. Last summer we had a Handel’s Water Music party; this summer, it’s Bach and mud cakes! And after all that hard work making decadence you can’t eat, there’s got to be some refreshment.

(By the way, the popsicles were made from instant pudding! Make the pudding according to box directions, pour into molds, and freeze! So simple and so delicious!)

Lapbooking the Orchestra

July 16, 2012Tracy7 Comments

We’ve been sprinkling in a little music and art appreciation this summer. I will admit that it’s been tough to get to everything this summer with Littlest joining the fun. I’m really glad I opted for relaxed lesson planning (it was more like rough weekly goals than actual lesson plans); this way, I avoid the overwhelming feeling of being behind. It’s summer, after all, right? Who gets behind on summer school!

We’ve been listening to Classic For Kids stories about Bach and adding elements to our music lapbook. Oldest has his periods of music down: baroque, classical, romantic, modern.

We’ve also been learning the seating chart for an orchestra, learning the different instrument families, and trying to identify certain instruments by sound.

orchestra seating lapbook

And did I mention that Littlest is joining the fun, now? He’s making music of his own these days.

homeschooling with baby — How's this sound?

Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bach?

June 7, 2012Tracy

I’ve been all over the place deciding what composer to study this summer. It’s been really bad. But I did finally decide, and everything fell together really nicely after all.

I had originally thought we would be studying Mendelssohn because I had a free set of plans for Monet and Mendelssohn. Then one day it dawned on me that I didn’t have to study Mendelssohn just because we were studying Monet. It dawned on me because I’d just picked up another free set of plans to study Brahms, and Brahms sounded so much more appealing than Mendelssohn. So, Brahms it was.

Until I listened to one of my kids LeapPad books and realized that our artists up to this point (Handel and Vivaldi) have been in the Baroque period. I hadn’t given much teaching time to the music periods; we simply listened to the music and read biographies. But suddenly it seemed that I ought to teach the music period, and I ought to teach Bach since he was in our Baroque period of music.

So, after much indecision, Bach it is.

I have plenty of materials, which is one reason the decision has been so hard to make. But I have stumbled upon some really excellent music fun that I thought I’d pass along.

First, I found over 60 pages of music lapbooking bliss for FREE at Living Life Intentionally blog. Next, I ran across The Story of the Orchestra at our library (complete with CD) and wondered, “Where have you been all this time?” This book is absolutely fabulous. Very kid-friendly, very “non-music person” friendly. The first half of the book introduces composers by period and includes a note about which track to play on the CD; the second half of the book introduces the orchestra and specific instruments of the orchestra, with accompanying tracks on the CD. I’ve learned so much from this book! Lastly, I picked up Erica’s World’s Greatest Composers study for $5.50. I love her lapbooking materials; I love her notebooking pages; I love the layout of her study.

And yes, I am going to attempt some lapbooks this summer. It is summer after all.

Summer’s on its way!

March 1, 2012Tracy

I’ve got it. I’ve got it bad—the summer itch. The weather has been so beautiful lately that I can hardly contain myself. I absolutely can’t wait for summer and summer school!

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I’ve loved our year-round school. And after last summer’s frolicks, the kids can’t wait either.

Now for the record, my idea of summer school is not to maintain the same schedule. Oh, no. Instead, I use the summer to tackle all of the fun we couldn’t cram into the year: nature study, drawing, art, and music. For instance, last summer we did a nature study and learned about our five senses, studied Van Gogh’s art and Handel’s Water Music, and continued our phonics lessons.

Why do summer school at all?

For one, I honestly can’t stand spending the first six weeks of a school year re-learning everything we covered the year before.
Two, I love the structure that school brings to our day. We all miss it. The kids can’t stand taking Saturdays off (I draw the line there). Though we definitely enjoy our breaks, after a little vacation we’re all starving for that structure once more.
And then, we honestly just have fun. I’m not saying that we don’t have any struggles or that every day is a walk in the park; but overall, we have fun learning together. If it’s been awhile since we’ve enjoyed school, I re-evaluate everything.

What’s up for this summer’s fun?

Monet and Mendelssohn, more nature study (continuing our study of the animal classifications in our own backyard), and we’ll finish up our geography study with a summer of U.S. geography (learning the 50 states and some history facts). Cuisenaire rods for math, maybe some drawing. My son will continue his phonics and reading, and we may experiment with some cursive writing since he’s been curious about it lately.

How do we plan to tackle all of that and still have time to play?

I recently ran across a brilliant scheduling concept dubbed “one more thing.” This homeschool mom tackles the electives after lunch, only one per day—a day for art, a day for music, a day for experiments, a day for whatever! I immediately saw the potential of this concept, allowing me to fit in all of the fun that appeals to me.

I plan on having a schedule to follow (which I’ll post a little later) but no daily lesson plans necessarily. I have an overall curriculum, but I don’t want to be regimented by a daily list of items to check off. We’ll tackle phonics, math, and nature study every day; the other subjects will fall into our “one more thing” routine (i.e. U.S. geo-1 day/wk; art/music or drawing/music-2 days/wk; cursive-2 days/wk).

Phonics and math will take about an hour altogether; nature study will take as long as we want it to (nature study = explore the outdoors). Then our “one more thing” will take about 1/2 hour max. Really, it’s not much school time at all, but it makes for a lot of fun memories.

What am I using? (In other words, how do I budget summer school?)

That’s a great question, and honestly summer plans could easily push the budget a little bit. But when planning last year and this year, I asked two questions: What do I want to teach? and What do I have to teach with? Sometimes, what I want to teach changes after I look at what I have (or what I can pick up for cheap). So here’s what I’m using and how much it will cost.

Monet and Mendelssohn:

Summer 2009 Art and Music Appreciation from Harmony Fine Arts Plans (free)

Nature Study:

Nature Study Notebooking Pages ($10.95)

Library books and Handbook of Nature Study (on my Kindle computer app)

U.S. Geography:

50-states puzzle (I already own)

U.S. States song from Geography Songs (I own and have been using all year)

Drawing:

I Can Draw (I already own)

Cursive:

K4 Cursive Writing Tablet and Writing with Phonics- A Beka