Harmony Fine Arts Plans for Art and Music Appreciation

 Age, Art, Charlotte Mason, Elementary, Fine Arts, High School, Middle School, Music  101 Responses »
Apr 232012
 

You are in for a treat at the end. Don’t miss the giveaway!

Dear homeschool parent,

Are you like me? Do you long to enrich your homeschool with studies of composers and artists? Do you wish that someone would just do it all for you? You know, invest the time in research, find the online links, point you to the resources you need? All I really wanted to be able to do was open something up and teach. Have it all right there and not have to pull it all together myself.

It’s done. Yes, really. It’s all done for you. Barb-Harmony Art Mom has created just what you need. She, too, was like us. Here is what Barb has to say about the Harmony Fine Arts (HFA) plans she created:

The idea behind this program came from my own home schooling experience. I was always searching for a plan for picture study and composer study. It seemed simple enough to do myself but I just never did it. I also wanted to use the classical style and Charlotte Mason’s ideas for our art and music. I wanted all the great resources organized in the four-year cycle of history. I wanted it to be flexible and easy to use. I never found what I was searching for so I decided to do it myself!

This is the art and music appreciation program for busy people. We have done all the research and organizing. You are able to open our plan and offer a great program for your children.

As mentioned above, the plans are organized by the four-year cycle of history. They are presented as follows but plans for individual grades are available:

  • Grammar – Grades 1-4
  • Logic – Grades 5-8
  • Rhetoric – Grades 9-12

(First grade plans are a general overview and gentle introduction to composers and artists. Starting with grade 2, the plans work chronologically through the four year history cycle.)

Art Plans:

Offer three options so you can choose what is best for your homeschool.

  • You can simply choose picture study with links to view all the art online for easy viewing.
  • You can add in an art appreciation study with short activities.
  • You can even follow along in certain grades with the formal art program Artistic Pursuits or Drawing with Children or Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad – depending on the grade level.
  • Depending on which option you choose within the art plans – you can allow for one or two 45-minute art periods per week.

Composer Study:

  • Choose to study the composers and listen to their music or
  • Enhance your music study with suggested books

Included: artist and composer notebooking pages, coloring pages of famous art.

How we use Harmony Fine Arts Plans in our home: we adopted Angie and her boys at Petra School’s Wednesday habit of artist and composer study. All this means is that we push back the dishes from lunch. I open up the Harmony Fine Art Plans on my computer. I turn on the music of the composer we are studying. Or I click over to the optional online listening of Classics for Kids. We might work on a notebook page while listening.

Next, depending on the day, I might click over to view artwork of the artist we are studying. We may follow with an artist notebook page or a Draw Squad lesson. This takes 15 to 30 minutes once a week. But building a weekly habit has tuned us all in and made us want more the rest of the week.

  • “Can we play that again? I really like it.” 14-year-old
  • Six-year-old whistling along to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony when I turn on the classical music just for listening fun.

The Many Benefits of Art and Music Study:

Cost: All costs are listed on the order page of the Harmony Fine Arts website. Bundles are available as well as individual year plans. I purchased the Middle School Medieval/Renaissance Plans at the start of this school year for $17.44. A whole year of study for the whole family for less than $20 – one that brings that much learning and enjoyment? What a bargain!

Print or ebook? Harmony Fine Arts Plans are available in both print or ebook format.

In Summary: What I originally intended for my middle-schoolers to study has extended to full blown appreciation for the whole family – all five children.

  • The artist and composer studies compliment our Tapestry of Grace studies beautifully.
  • For this mama, using HFA plans is easy. I just click to open the plans, click to print what we might like to compliment our studies, click to print a coloring page for the younger ones.
  • Not to mention, this type of enrichment is pure delight. It might just be what your homeschool needs too.

“All my music I wrote for God.” ~ J. S. Bach

I shared about our studies on my Hodgepodge site and my friend Kimberly, a pianist and life-long musician, had this to say…

“It warms my heart when I hear children learning about classical music! So many of those composers had such a love for God and were certainly gifted. When you mention Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, etc. to most children, they have no idea who they are. It’s so sad because these musicians have had such an impact on our world. It’s wonderful that you’re sharing this education with your children!” ~Kimberly

I agree – there is so much history and part of HIS story we can learn from those gifted and Godly. With thanks to Harmony Fine Arts for creating a wonderful tool for just such an education.

Now for the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Homeschooling for over a decade now, Tricia faces a daily dose of chaos with five children. She shares a mixture of free art lessons, recipes and the practical at Hodgepodge. Her husband, Steve, also shares reviews here at Curriculum Choice.

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Discovering Great Artists Review

 Art, Charlotte Mason, Unit study resources  No Responses »
Jun 112009
 

Jackson Pollock-Action Spatter

Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga can be seen around the homeschooling world quite a bit and I know a lot of different programs recommend it for a study of great artists.

 

Jackson Pollock-Action Splatter

 

 

Things I Like About Discovering Great  Artists:

  • The chart in the front shows the artist’s name, style, dates of lifetime, list of corresponding activities, and the level of difficulty
  • Most activities give an example of a finished product
  • Most materials we have on hand
  • I love chapter 5 with examples of games and activities (Masters Scrapbook page 111 is a fabulous idea)

Things I Don’t Like About Discovering Great Artists

  • I would have liked a list for each artist giving their major works so we could easily look them up. (See note below for a suggestion.)
  • I wish the prints included in the book were in color for the children to look at and study

Picasso Face-oil pastelsThis book could easily be the basis for a whole year’s worth of art projects. They recommend the book for ages 4-12 but I would recommend it for ages 8-14. The art activities and the projects listed in the back will keep you busy. Bright Ideas For Learning website (publishers of the book) now has a page that links to each of the artist’s work! Click the link above to check it out! They also have art activity cards that you can print out from their website. These cards can be printed in color and they include an artist’s print, short biography of the artist, and an additional art activity.

Self-Portrait-oil pastels

Self-Portrait-oil pastels

 This book would be a great inexpensive choice for starting out on your journey to get to know artists while having some fun activities to try.

Written by Barb-Harmony Art mom.  She also blogs at http://www.harmonyartmom.blogspot.com/

Child Size Masterpieces Art Review

 Art, Charlotte Mason, Classical  2 Responses »
May 232009
 

barb1Child-size Masterpieces are sets of over-sized art postcards that come in an over-sized book printed on thick cardstock. The art prints need to be cut (I do ours with a paper cutter) but you can easily remove them from the pages and use scissors and cut on the dotted line provided. The instructions for use are printed on the cover and I cut those out and put them along with the prints in an accordion type file. I own several sets so each set of prints is kept all together in a slot. On the backs of the cards are the title of the painting, the artist’s name, and a brief description of the art time period.

There are several activities suggested with these sets. The steps increase in difficulty and steps 1-3 are easily achievable by preschoolers. Steps 4-8 are appropriate for children from about age 6 and up. The cards for each step come in different sets so make sure you purchase a set that will accomplish what you want.

Step 1 – Matching identical paintings

Step 2 – Pairing two similar paintings by the same artist

Step 3 – Grouping four paintings by each of three artists

Step 4 – Learning the names of famous artists

Step 5 – Learning the names of famous paintings

Step 6 – Learning about the schools of art

Step 7 – Sorting schools of art

Step 8 – Placing paintings on a time line
What Do I Like About Child-Size Masterpieces?
1. Ease of use
2. Variety of prints
3. Inexpensive
4. Able to use them in lots of different ways
5. Aid to learning names of the paintings
6. Durability
7. Able to use them year after year
8. Appropriate for a wide variety of ages
9. Comes with ideas for using them
10. Can adapt the concepts with your own sets of art prints

Do you need the “How to Use” book?
Not in my opinion.

Which set to buy:
I would start with Level 1 if I have younger children, but you can use any of the sets that say on the cover that they are for steps 1,2, 3. They are labeled Easy, Intermediate, and Advanced but they all have the same amount of cards and the same activities.

barb2If you think your children are ready for a bit of a challenge, purchase either one of the sets that say step 4 or step 5 on the covers. These sets come with the painting’s name on separate cards for a matching activity.

There is a set for teaching steps 6 and 7 but I have not looked at it personally. If you want to link over to amazon.com and read the description, I will include the link here.

Child-size Masterpieces are a resource you will use over and over again. We pull the cards out from time to time for a little review. I like that the sets can “grow” with your child.
The first time through you can learn the names of the paintings.

The second time through you can learn the artist’s names.

The third time through you can learn the school of art (renaissance, impressionist, etc)

A fourth time through you can learn to put the paintings in order according to a timeline.

You can make up your own way of sorting the paintings. I use the cards to point out art terms such as shape, line, texture, portrait, landscape, complementary colors, neutrals, and so on. These cards are such a great resource for parents that are just getting started in learning about art with their children. I highly recommend them.

Written by Barb-Harmony Art Mom