The Curriculum Choice

Artistic Pursuits for the Junior High Student

Jun 262011

I previously introduced you to Artistic Pursuits for the K-3rd crowd. Now I would like to introduce you to Artistic Pursuits for the Junior High crowd. Artistic Pursuits will be highly appreciated by those who teach from a Charlotte Mason or Classical method. However, this art curriculum will enhance any homeschool.

The focus in Book One is on World Art. The student will gain an understanding of how different cultures impacted the world in different ways through their art. The book places equal emphasis on art history, art appreciation and techniques making this a complete art course for your junior high student. The lessons will cover one full year of Art. The course can also credit the student with Art Appreciation and Art History as each lesson focuses on these aspects. The student will gain a full understanding of how cultures interpreted art, what mediums were used, and how art was influenced by history and cultural aspects. Students will learn the techniques of the lesson before completing the art project to ensure proper reinforcement and understanding.

If you are concerned with your ability to teach art or you have too much on your plate to add in an involved art curriculum, do not turn away from Artistic Pursuits. This book is written to the student and no teacher preparation is needed. A list of materials is given in the beginning of the book and can be easily found at your local craft or art store. Once your student is equipped with the textbook, supplies and time, he can successfully complete this course. If you enjoy art and want to share the experience with your child this book will be a delight to your homeschool.

Artistic Pursuits is my favorite art curriculum based on its emphasis on art appreciation and art history. This is not a book full of projects with no purpose or a perfunctory glance at the roots of a technique. Artistic Pursuits is a course that your student will appreciate regardless of his talent, skill level, or interest in creating projects. This course will reinforce your history lessons by giving them a flavor of the people of the time.

Disclosure: This book provided by the publisher/creator for the purpose of review. Thoughts expressed are solely my own and from my experience.

Richele is a homeschooling mom to four reflections of God’s love whose greatest accomplishment thus far was teaching physics, folding laundry, and playing Candyland simultaneously. Find her blogging at Under the Golden Apple Tree.

Art with A Purpose

Art, Elementary, Hands On 1 Response »

May 262011

I love art and even considered making it my career. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which child I’m talking to), I never seem to get around to teaching art as a hands-on, let’s-get-creative-and-make-a-mess activity. I don’t know why; it’s just one of those things.

So what do my children do for art? Well, we do Charlotte Mason style picture study every few weeks, and each of my children works through the entire Art with A Purpose curriculum, doing about one lesson a week for eight years.

Art With a Purpose is an easy-to-teach curriculum that covers everything from coloring and pasting in the younger grades to lettering, color combining, perspective, and pen and ink drawings in the older grades. It does not, however, teach art history or appreciation at all. (Hence the picture study lessons.)

Each year’s Artpac contains 36 simple, step-by-step art lessons. Materials are usually simple to obtain. In fact, the only ones we’ve had trouble finding are the brass fasteners needed to allow movement in a monkey’s limbs and the hands of a clock.

Using this curriculum, moms have little teaching to do in the younger grades and even less as the children get older because the instructions are clear and easy to follow. Although classroom teachers are encouraged to work through each Artpac to provide their students with examples, this was not necessary for us at home.

Rod and Staff breaks down each year’s skills as follows:

Artpac 1 Simple coloring skills, color-by-number, cutting and pasting.
Artpac 2 Simple coloring skills, cutting, pasting, simple perspective drawing.
Artpac 3 Coloring, shading with crayons, simple grid drawing and painting.
Artpac 4 Coloring, shading with crayons, drawing stick figures, simple grid drawing, and perspective drawing.
Artpac 5 Shading with colored pencils, drawing faces, painting and paint mixing, lettering, and grid work.
Artpac 6 Shading with colored pencils, drawing faces, lettering, grid work, freehand and perspective drawing.
Artpac 7 Advanced shading with soft lead colored pencils, grid drawing, calligraphy, paint mixing and painting, and sketching.
Artpac 8 Shading with pen and ink.

View detailed outlines of each course, with samples.

Most weeks my children spend between 30 minutes and two hours on their Artpacs, depending on the effort they are willing to expend. They are usually pleased with their work, and often give the cards, pictures, or crafts as gifts. Many of them also adorn the bedroom doors.

We’ve encountered very few problems over the years. Some lessons in the early years are much too difficult and take too long. We don’t skip those, but I allowed the child to work on them for a long time, pointing out that it was a lesson in perseverance as well as in art. I also allowed children who struggled with motor skills to progress slowly, with the beneficial result that they were able to do a better job at the upper levels as well.

Published by Rod and Staff, the Artpacs feature a few pictures that are obviously Mennonite. Wording, where there is any, is inspiring and often Christian. Although the Artpacs have no projects about Halloween, Easter bunnies, Santa Claus, or baby Jesus, I have received several wonderful Mothers’ Day cards.

Each year’s worth of lessons is well under $10. This is a very good deal, especially for the grade 8 Artpac’s pen and ink pages that would retail for several hundred dollars at my local art supply store.

If you’re not the kind of person who thrives on doing hands-on crafts with your children, but you still want them to learn the basics of art, it’s worth checking out Art with A Purpose. It’s thorough, easy to use, Christian, and inexpensive.

Written by Annie Kate, a Christian homeschooling mom of five, who reviews and blogs at Tea Time with Annie Kate.

Disclosure: Having used Artpacs for a dozen years, I love telling people about them. I receive no compensation for this review.

Art Murals for Kids

Art, Elementary, Middle School, Unit study resources 4 Responses »

May 232011

Last February my family spent several days creating murals to hang in their bedrooms. Coordinating several children to produce something beautiful to hang on the wall can be challenging. We used inexpensive downloads from Art Murals for Kids as our guide for several reasons:

They’re easy – even my 2 year old can color.
They’re printable – which meant if a piece got messed up and bothered the children they could just print again and redo it.
They make beautiful final products.

My sons chose to use Oil Pastels to color their version of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. They decided to try following the original for their colors. This came from the Mini Impressionist Mural Set, which is only $5.00. In this set the murals are small – our Starry Night printout was 6 pages, measuring 23″x 19″. It was just right for a family to do together instead of a classroom. There is a larger version of Starry Night available for download that is 24 pages and measures 48″x 36″. I really like how the colors of the oil pastels are bold. The only drawback to oil pastels is they are a bit smudgy – mostly on children’s hands!

My daughters used crayons with this mural for their bedroom. They chose this one for the animals. Their file was also $5.00and included two sizes to use: a 36-page version measuring 45″x 45″ and a 9-page mini version measuring 22.5″ x 22.5″. I think the crayons looks all right, it just does not stand out as much as the oil pastels. We may try painting a mural sometime for a change.

There are quite a few other mural possibilities to choose from at Art Murals for Kids. She even offers coloring books of famous paintings that would be a fun addition to an artist study. Be sure to check out her companion site, Art Projects for Kids for tons of art project ideas to use with your children. I’ve found some real gems as I’ve explored the archives!

Tristan is a happily homeschooling LDS mother to 6 blessings age 9, 6, 5, 3, 2, and 5 months old. You can drop in and visit anytime over at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool. Read her other Curriculum Choice posts here.

{Disclaimer: I purchased these products on my own. This is not a sponsored post in any way. And yes, we hope to purchase more murals in the future!}

Drawing Basics by Thomas Kinkade

Art, Bible 3 Responses »

Apr 182011

I count it a benefit of homeschooling when one of the masters can step in and teach my children. Thomas Kinkade has led my children in Drawing Basics several times already. That is with the Alpha Omega DVD Lifepac. An Alpha Omega Lifepac is a full subject of study “built upon the principle of mastery learning.” Drawing Basics is an elective Lifepac.

Our two eldest children went through all the lessons with the accompanying workbooks. We just added drawing tablets, pencils and erasers. Drawing Basics is truly the basics. The study begins with line and shape and leads all the way to art history.

The five units each include three sections. Thomas Kinkade teaches the concept at the beginning of each section, encouraging students to sketch along in their drawing tablets.

Next the student is directed to pause the DVD and to “return to your workbook” for practice in the concept.

Also included:

18 weeks of study
extra enrichment activities
review questions
tests
teacher guide
5 unit workbooks
instructional DVD

Unit workbooks and instructional DVD can be purchased separately. Alpha Omega Publications offers the DVD for purchase by itself for $13.95 here.

Intended for:

Grades 3 to 5 but can be adapted for up to grade 8. (Guess what? My 5-year-old, 3^rd grader and two middle schoolers all enjoy it).

Plus:

Thomas Kinkade teaches from a Biblical worldview and includes a Bible lesson in each section.

This resource is great to use as an elective, a unit study and/or to compliment history studies. Plus when you’ve already enjoyed his lessons several times, the DVD is so nice to pull out on a sick day. There is always something new we didn’t notice before. And that day, not long ago, when I was on the couch, it was sure fun to tell my fellow homeschoolers, “Oh Thomas Kinkade taught school today!”

For more information on all Alpha Omega Lifepac Curriculum, visit their site.

View a video sample on the AOP website by creating an account here.

How about you? Wouldn’t you like the ‘Painter of Light’ to teach your children?

~Tricia faces a daily dose of chaos homeschooling five children. She contributes a blend of writing at parenting and homeschool sites as well as her own daily Hodgepodge.

Piano Course for Christians

Elementary, Middle School, Music No Responses »

Feb 162011

I had the pleasure of reviewing the entire Madonna Woods Piano Course for Christians from the Preparatory Level all the way through Level 5. The first question everyone always seems to ask is, “Will I really be able to teach piano to my children using this course?” My quick answer is, “Yes, I believe many people will.”

If you have any sort of musical training at all, you should be able to use this piano course without any problems, taking your children from the very beginning levels of piano and music theory all the way to being able to play medium difficulty hymns. Even if you have no musical background, Mrs. Woods has done a wonderful job of walking you through the lessons step-by-step.

She has included with each piano book:

an audio CD with her speaking directly to the student that leads him or her through the lessons. On the CD Mrs. Woods explains new concepts such as time signatures, note and rest values and hand placement.
a pull-out sheet of notes for each lesson that you might use to reinforce the concepts.

The pages in the piano book are all very clear with pictures when necessary to show hand positions or the names of particular notes on the keyboard. Notes can also be found at the top of each lesson page for the student to better understand the concept being introduced. Even though this sounds a bit overwhelming, it really isn’t at all. The CD and teacher notes are very easy to use, and the pictures and notes to the student are placed very neatly on the pages so the student isn’t overwhelmed.

From the very first preparatory lesson, the student will be learning notes and playing simple songs. He or she will also be learning bits and pieces of music theory from the beginning levels. It’s all introduced in a gentle and encouraging way so that the student should feel successful and capable after each lesson.

Review tests are found at the end of each level to test the music theory knowledge learned throughout the book. Also found at the end of some of the books are different glossaries or helps depending on the skills introduced in that level. For example, in level 1, you will find a dictionary of musical terms in which to refer. Piano recital pieces and a completion certificate are included at the end of the books as well. Mrs. Woods has placed a great amount of emphasis on the religious use of music and has included Christian hymns as much as possible in the lessons.

Depending on how much you know about music, this paragraph may mean a lot or a little to you. But, if the student completes the preparatory book and all five levels, they will understand such musical concepts as major and minor keys, triads, chords, and unusual time signatures like 6/4 and 4/2. They will have progressed to playing 16th notes and understand the difference between melodies and chords. Will they be able to sit down at church and play a hymn from the hymn book? I doubt it just yet, but that skill would be just around the corner.

When to start with your children? That I cannot answer. I couldn’t find a recommended age level, but I’ve always been told that piano shouldn’t start until your child’s hands are big enough to span the keys comfortably. The entire course from beginning to end can be used either on a regular piano or a keyboard.

I found this to be a thorough program from start to finish. Mrs. Woods has put together a very encouraging, easy to follow piano curriculum that will see results if you and your child put forth the effort required. Just as with any piano lessons, learning to play well from this curriculum will take regular practice. I think what I like most is the fact that Mrs. Woods has painstakingly created a course that revolves around the Lord and how music should glorify Him.

-Written by Cindy, an eclectically Charlotte Mason mom of 3 from Central KY. You can find her blogging at Our Journey Westward and find her nature study curricula at Shining Dawn Books. This product was given to Cindy for the purpose of her honest review.

365 Days of Celebration and Praise

Art, Bible, Encouragement, Hands On 4 Responses »

Jan 032011

It’s easy.

It’s done for you.

Those two criteria really appeal to me as a homeschool mother.

Julie Lavender has done all the work. Pull out her 365 Days of Celebration and Praise to start the day. It’s appropriate for all ages. A full year of family devotionals.

We all need an easy, stress-free way to add some fun to our homeschool day. We sometimes start with these Daily Devotions and Activities written by a homeschooler for homeschooling families. Or maybe we read it together at lunch time. Other times children pull it out on their own.

We celebrate birthdays, holidays. Why not every day? Included for each day:

Questions to discuss
Related activity – a craft, recipe or other simple, hands-on project
Curriculum Connection – suggested activity related to a school subject (e.g., for National Backyard Games Week – “What interjections did you use when you played your game outside? What is an interjection? Can you think of more interjections?”)
Verse to memorize
Prayer suggestion

Did you know March 1 is National Pig Day? Read Luke 15: 11-32 and discuss why you think the younger son took all he had and left… Who forgave the young man? Then make a pig bookmark if you like. All the instructions are included. Next, see how many baby animal names you know. Memorize Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Pray, asking God to help you forgive. Thank God for his forgiveness of sins.

National Fragrance Week? Clergy Appreciation Day? National Dessert Month? Basketball Season? Holy Humor Month? Golden Rule Week? Epiphany? Drinking Straw Day?

So take a bit of advice from December 30, Make-Up-Your-Mind Day, check out Julie Lavender’s resource. It’s available for $16.99 here. Learn, discuss, memorize and pray together as a family this year.

May God bless you as you make each day a holiday! ~ Julie Lavender

~Tricia faces a daily dose of chaos homeschooling five children. She contributes a blend of writing at parenting and homeschool sites as well as her own daily Hodgepodge.

Making Music Praying Twice

Elementary, Music, Preschool 2 Responses »

Dec 152010

Making Music Praying Twice is a Catholic music curriculum that focuses on children from birth through 8 years old, although many older children may enjoy the curriculum (or maybe even just being helpers). It is a 95 song journey through the Liturgical year of the church. Making Music Praying Twice (which comes from a quote by St. Augustine of Caterbury who said, “He who sings, prays twice.”) is available as both a regular edition (for parishes and preschools), as well as a homeschool edition. My family has been thrilled this year to have been able to receive the homeschool edition of this wonderful and faithful music curriculum.

Making Music Praying Twice is one of those pieces of curriculum that makes me feel even better to use, as it was developed (and is sold) by a homeschooling family. I love the thought of supporting other homeschoolers!

What is included in the set?

The homeschool version of Making Music Praying Twice (which sells for $96.00) includes:

A 273 page Homeschool Edition guidebook which contains a wealth of information including lesson plans for using this program either daily or weekly (so that each day or week looks different), as well as all of the music with suggested activities for each song.
Five CDs each containing between 17 – 25 songs. Each CD represents a certain part of the liturgical year – Ordinary Time – Fall, Advent-Christmas-Epiphany, Ordinary Time – Winter, Easter-Pentecost, and Lent.
Five Children’s Songbooks, each corresponding to one of the CDs. They contain pictures, words to the songs, as well as the actual written music. (My older boys feel a sense of accomplishment to look at the music in some of them and say, “Hey – I could play that on the piano!”)
Online Music Education Activities are not specifically included in the set, but they are available on Making Music Praying Twice’s website.

Making Music Praying Twice uses everything from traditional children’s songs to finger plays to Gregorian chants to favorite hymns, plus so much more! There is a fabulous variety of types of songs and some spoken word recordings (even some in foreign languages) in order to teach and promote all types of musical brain development such as different types of tones, beats, meters, and tonal and rhythm patterns. The best part about all of that is that children just feel like they’re having fun!

Although my children all take piano lessons, one of their favorite things is getting to play with some of the instruments and equipment that Making Music Praying Twice suggests that you use with their program. These aren’t included with the program, and we only bought shaky eggs and rhythm sticks, as well as being able to use some of the items on the list that we already have at home.

My only regret with Making Music Praying Twice is that I didn’t start it when all of my children were young. Although the older children still enjoy it, I know that it is definitely more geared toward my younger child (although my nine year old that loves music is also a big fan, but it really helps that he loves music so much).

I would definitely recommend Making Music Praying Twice as a music curriculum for Catholic families with children in the 0 – 8 age range.

Angie writes about faith, family, and household management at her blog, Many Little Blessings. She is also the founder of The Homeschool Classroom and Catholic Mothers Online. She dreams of being an artist.

Disclosure: I received the homeschool edition of Making Music Praying Twice in exchange for blog advertising space, as well as for reviewing this product. All opinions are my own.

Music for Little Mozarts

Elementary, Music, Preschool 1 Response »

Nov 242010

Last school year, I had a strong desire to start my boys in music lessons. And, while this led to a quest for a free piano, which my husband spent many hours refinishing for us, it has also brought much joy into our home. At the time, our daughter was in preschool, and we decided to focus only on starting our boys with the piano, since they were eight and ten at the time.

This year, since our daughter started kindergarten, we decided to start her in piano lessons as well (since all of our children had to change teachers). Our new piano teacher started our daughter (who was reading only very small words) in Music for Little Mozarts from Alfred Music Publishing, which touts itself as “a piano course to bring out the music in every young child.” The deluxe starter kit is available from Alfred Music Publishing for $69.95. (In interest of saving money, it appears to also be available on other sites for under $50.)

Although we are using these books and materials in conjunction with formal music lessons, I feel confident that at the first level, I would have been able to do them at home with my daughter with my limited musical abilities. As a matter of fact, if you have an older child who has taken piano lessons, they could probably do it with a younger sibling as well. Although you would eventually need to go with more formal piano lessons (from a teacher), this can be a great introduction in your own home.

My daughter really enjoys that there are characters that go along with the different concepts, as well as that lessons consist not only of time to play, but also of some coloring activities as well. I like that this helps to cement some of the musical concepts by approaching them in a variety of ways.

All of the books for this program can be purchased individually, not only in the starter kit. Using the books in weekly lessons (with daily practice on what was covered during those weekly lessons), she has moved through the first level in just a couple of months. However, at least some of the books and materials can be reused for other children. (There is a workbook that would need to be replaced after each child was done with it to use the program with another child.)

Music for Little Mozarts has been a great way to introduce a young child to the beauty of playing the piano, and it’s one that we’ve all been enjoying.

Dover Coloring Books

Art, History, Science, Unit study resources 4 Responses »

Nov 102010

We have many, many Dover coloring books, and they have changed the life of at least one of our children. Miss 12 spends hours carefully coloring fashions of the past. She has learned so much history simply from studying the pictures and reading the captions. In fact, when she looks at paintings she can date them accurately, just by what the people are wearing! She’s also learned a lot about color, realism, different media, and shading from the historical fashion coloring books.

Of course, not all Dover coloring books are about historical fashions. We have books about military planes, cowboys, dogs, birds of prey, weeds, butterflies, and more. Many of these books have small full-color examples of each coloring page, and all of them have informative captions for each picture. Other coloring book titles include castles, farm animals, and ABC’s . You can see them all here.

Note that these are not your typical scribble-in-when-you-are-four-years-old coloring books. The pictures are detailed and accurate and would be a pleasant challenge even for an adult. The paper is high quality, and we’ve even used markers on them, although pencil crayons and gel-pens work better.

For children who love to do something with their hands while mom reads aloud or while chatting with friends, there is no better Christmas gift or add-on to a school subject. Of course these books will not work for all children, but since they are relatively inexpensive it’s worth a try. If the kids don’t like them, you can always color them yourself. In fact, I’m regularly tempted to order some of the great artists books for myself, but right now my days are too full to add a project like that.

To try out actual coloring pages, you can sign up for free weekly samples at the Dover web site.

Caution: Occasionally the outfits in the fashion coloring books are indecent. Some of the other books, such as those about art, may need a similar warning, but I have not seen them.

Disclosure

This review is based on the many Dover coloring books we have bought over the years. I do not receive any compensation for it.

-Written by Annie Kate, a Christian homeschooling mom of five great children, who blogs at Tea Time With Annie Kate.

Sing the Word

Bible, Music 3 Responses »

Nov 052010

In big church, I find myself humming the tune of Happy Birthday to You when we read, “Marvel not that I said… marvel not that I said… marvel not that I said unto thee ye must be born again” John 3 verse 7.
All because the CDs by the Harrow family have tucked the Lord’s Word into our hearts.

Memorization is so very important but often a difficult skill to set aside time to practice. For us, singing has been the simplest way of memorizing.

I found this resource early in our homeschool journey through Sonlight curriculum. We started with Sing the Word A to Z and A New Commandment.

How our family uses this resource:

For individual learning – for the littlest ones – adding a scripture song to a room time CD. Older ones pick a CD to listen to during afternoon quiet time.
Popping in a CD in the car. Everyone learning all at once – even parents. It just has to be practical for us to get it done!
Last Christmas, each of the children received a Sing the Word title for their ‘spiritual’ gift. There was a bundle of four CDs offered with a free download of a Quiet Time CD – perfect for our five. (This special is still available!)

Sing the Word is produced by His Own Hand Music. Their collection includes over 100 songs plus two books of the Bible songs for Old and New Testament.

Titles include:

Credo new!
Quiet Time Collection
All Nations Shall Worship
The Heavens Declare
Great in Counsel and Mighty in Deed
God Our Provider
A New Commandment
Sing the Word A to Z

Additional Resources:

an accompanying Bible Copywork book for God Our Provider.
songbooks
lyrics

Listen to samples of all songs and CDs on their site. Eight sets of scripture are available for purchase or immediate download. Individual CDs are $14.95 with bundle package specials often available.

-Tricia homeschools five children from preschool to middle school, mixing up a classical and Charlotte Mason style. You can find her facing that daily dose of chaos at Hodgepodge and sharing habits at Habits for a Happy Home.