Fine Arts and Nature Fridays

I would love to belong to a Charlotte Mason coop like the Truth, Goodness, Beauty Community or this Charlotte Mason Nature Study Group.  However, while I've found a couple people who are vaguely interested, I haven't found anyone who looks at this and says, "yes, this is wonderful, this is exactly what I've been looking for!  Let's sit down and figure out how to make this happen!".  After feeling sorry for myself for awhile, I decided last spring that I would create my own coop.  For my family.  After all, just because we can't find anyone to join us shouldn't mean that would should deny ourselves the satisfaction and enjoyment we would derive from such an excellent endeavor.  We call it our Fine Arts and Nature Club and we've placed it under the patronage of Blessed John Paul the Second.

We started this last spring, right towards the end of our school year.  I put together a schedule that included Shakespeare, picture study, an art project, poetry, a nature walk with some nature journalling, composer study, some handicrafts time while listening to a read-aloud - in short, all the things you'd expect to see in a Charlotte Mason inspired Fine Arts and Nature coop.  Every Friday we would dive into all these beautiful and wonderful gifts and we all - from the four year old to this thirty-six year old mother - love it.  It is has a firm place in our school schedule, and it is a wonderful and enriching way to end the school week.

I find it interesting is to see how these Fine Arts and Nature Club Fridays bleed over into the rest of our week.  After awhile, we decided poetry just on Friday wasn't enough.  We wanted to listen to Longfellow's poetry as part of our morning time together too.  We started including more read-aloud and handicraft time during the week too, including some time listening to an audiobook together so I can craft too.  Knitting, crochet, and now pine needle basket making are daily events in our house, accompanied by good literature.  Our music studies have spilled over as well, although a little more fitfully.  By giving these good things a day of their own, they have filled and blessed that day and overflowed into the rest of our week, the rest of our lives.

As I was planning our Fine Arts and Nature Fridays for this term, I thought I would like to share what our schedule looks like, and also what actually ends up happening.  After all, in a house with busy and active children, those two things generally do not end up looking exactly alike, do they!

Friday, January 18th, 2013

The Plan:

8:30	Prayer
8:45	Poetry and Recitation	Read from Hiawatha, then review memory-work
9:00	Composer Biography	Part of Handel from Story-Lives of Great Musicians (plus narration)
9:15	Picture Study	Winslow Homer Engraved version of the Sharpshooter Oil Painting Sharpshooter Oil Painting  (I used the Art Authority app for this painting)  Picture study of the oil painting, then look at both, compare.  Discuss why the different versions exist.
9:30	Recess
9:50	Math Game	Rummikub
10:40	Snack and Shakespeare	Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (narrate, draw a character map)
11:00	Art and Music	http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2009/03/18/multi-media-winter-birch-trees/ (for Emma) http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2011/11/09/birch-trees-art-lesson/ (for boys) Listen to Water Music
12:00	Angelus, then Lunch	Watch Great Composers and Their Music: George Frideric Handel (Discovery Education)

I usually would have my weekly meeting with Emma after lunch, then we would go on a nature walk and do some journalling.  However, we had a trip to the ice skating rink planned with our homeschooling group, so we did that instead!

So here's what our actual day looked like instead:

9:00	Prayer	Started late because it was a difficult morning - largely hair brushing angst with the 10 year old and a mom who is trying to do too many things in the morning and doesn’t want to give up any of them.
9:15	Poetry and Recitation	Read a short section from Hiawatha, then practiced memory-work as planned.
9:35	Composer Biography	Handel from Story-Lives of Great Musicians - this went well, and everyone enjoyed this read aloud.
9:50	Recess	The kids and I played with the plastic bat and ball.  They had fun hitting the ball while I attempted to pitch.  Boy, we are all so bad at it, but there was a lot of giggling and running around!
10:10	Picture Study	Winslow Homer Sharpshooter Oil Painting This went very well.  Gregory (7), before he even saw the picture, wanted to do a drawing narration of the painting.  We broke out the art supplies and did this for our art project instead.  Given the time, I quickly sliced some carrots, put out some peanut butter, and the kids snacked while they drew.  Just to add to the multi-tasking, I also played Water Music for them.  Emma decided to draw something inspired by the music instead of the Sharpshooter drawing, but I encouraged her to finish the Sharpshooter drawing then work on her water picture, as she was at least 3/4 of the way done already.
11:00	Math Game	Rummikub - we all enjoy this game and it is good practice for everyone in spotting patterns and strategy.
11:40	Read-aloud	After we finished the game, we decided to listen to the retelling of Shakespeare in the car (yay, Librivox) and I read some of The Shakespeare Stealer instead.  This is our squeeze in where ever we can read-aloud right now.  It doesn’t have an official place in the schedule, but we’re managing to find a few places to read it during the week.  We are all enjoying it a great deal!
12:00	Angelus, then Lunch	Watch Great Composers and Their Music: George Frideric Handel (Discovery Education)
12:45	Out the door for ice skating!	We listened to Nesbit’s version of Much Ado About Nothing in the car, pausing every few minutes to narrate and untangle the plot.  I wish the reader had read a little more slowly!

So even though this was a morning where I whined to my husband, "can I please give up now?  How about boarding school?", the day was redeemed and made lovely by our rich and varied course of study.  Yes, the art project was replaced by our sharpshooter drawn narrations, but I think that was a reasonable substitution.  We still need to draw our character map for Much Ado About Nothing, but we'll do that next week and it'll serve as a good review.