Saturday, January 19, 2013

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
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
11:00
Art and Music
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.



7 comments:

  1. This is great, Amber! As I sit here waiting for my kids at a weekly class, I am pondering our morning basket/ weekly morning time . I've tried so long for a daily m basket a la Jen M. But maybe weekly as Lindafay describes would be more feasible for us. Is your daily morning time fairly brief? I'm thinking, saint of the day and a poem and then on to the daily schedule. My kiddos are 8 1/2, 7, 4 , 4 and 18 mo.

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    1. Hi Amanda,

      My morning time is a little longer, but not as long as some. We read and narrate the daily Mass readings, read a little about a Saint of the Day, pray a decade of the rosary, sing a hymn and maybe one or two fun songs (from Making Music, Praying Twice), read and narrate from our world history read aloud, read about five minutes of poetry and narrate, then recitation. We can move through it in about 45 minutes, but if the kids are dragging on the narrations and recitation then it can be more like an hour.

      When we first started doing a morning time it was much briefer. It has grown considerably in the three or so years we've been doing it. The kids grow into it and have more patience for it. Younger two are only expected to be still for the first 15 minutes or so (Mass readings, saint reading, and rosary decade) then they can play quietly.

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  2. Thanks, Amber. That is helpful. Do you read a world history that is for everyone, or that is tied to one student's main history for the year? We've been trying to incorporate Making Music, Praying twice, as well, but mostly we end up just listening and learning the songs. I've been reading Cindy Rollins' description of her daily Morning Time and wondering if I need to just jump in and embrace it as the main part of the morning. I've thought of morning basket as a 30 min - 1 hr beginning and then move in to the core, but maybe I need to let morning time/basket be the core, and then a longer time once a week for the fine arts, etc. So many decisions!

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    1. Currently I read world history and US history (our afternoon read-aloud) for everyone. I (loosely) use Connecting with History for world history and everyone studies the same time period at the same time. I do the same thing with US History, although I am developing my own book lists for this subject. I don't think this will work forever, but for now it works well. I think when I have high school age kids they will probably not study the same historical periods as the rest of the family nor do all of morning time. Instead I will probably have them break off when I start doing the longer read-alouds with the younger ones, much like Cindy Rollins does with her kids. But given that my oldest is only in 5th grade, I have a few years before that is much of a concern!

      BTW, have you listened to Cindy Rollins CIRCE talk (down towards the bottom of the page)? It is available on their site as a download for $3.00. I just bought it recently and I found it very encouraging! I really like how she emphasizes the importance of doing what you can, persevering, and how this can grow over time. We don't need to feel like we have to do it all at first, but to pick one piece, start with it, then add a little more and a little more - and to not get discouraged if it seems too difficult or if it doesn't seem to be clicking with children. It is so helpful to read her long term perspective on this!

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  3. Thanks for writing back, Amber! i just came back for the first time since January, after you posted a link on the MA TTF. Yes, I bought the talk a couple weeks ago and it is helpful. Still working on implementing!

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