Composer Study April-May-June 2010

Edvard Grieg (1890) & Jean Sibelius (nationalists)



Listening selections for this term:
Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite no 1

Grieg - Piano Concerto in A

Grieg - Norwegian Dance no 2

Sibelius - Finlandia

Sibelius - Symphony 1 (4 weeks)

1st movement

2nd movement

3rd movement

4th movement

Artist Study April-May-June 2010

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) American (Biography)

1. Oyster Gatherers of Cancale, 1878, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC
2. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
3. (Violet Sargent at) The Breakfast Table, 1884, Fogg Museum of Art (Harvard, Cambridge, MA). Violet was Sargent's younger sister; he himself never married or had children.
4. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-6, Tate Gallery, London, England (see also here")
5. An Artist in his Studio, 1904, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
6. Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892-3, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
Singer Sargent also painted Theodore Roosevelt, 1903, The White House, Washington, D.C.
and Robert Louis Stevenson and his Wife, 1885, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK

Spring Break is Over, Time to get back to work

We've had a lot of time off it seems lately and a few things left out of our schooling.

Here are the things we'll be studying the next 6 weeks or so.

We still use the workbox system but mostly just to organize our daily work. I don't use all the cards and strips.

Right now in our workboxes we have:

1. Bible - reading through Ephesians

2. Math flash cards

3. Math lesson

4. Literature - Audio Book "Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass" unabridged.

5. Reading Lesson

6. Spelling Lesson

7. M/W/F=Biblioplan Modern History; T/TH Science "Observing God's World"

8. M/W/F= History page/timeline/map/project; T/TH Science page or experiment

9. M-Poetry; Tu-Shakespeare; W-Artist Study; Th- Composer Study

10. Copywork

11. open

12. open

Poetry: Rudyard Kipling

Shakespeare: A Winter's Tale

Artist Study : John Singer Sargent

Biography

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

Here, most of the work is done for me!

Composer Study: Edvard Grieg & Jean Sibelius

She's done it again!

Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite no 1
Grieg - Piano Concerto in A
Grieg - Norwegian Dance no 2

http://www.classicsforkids.com/shows/showview.asp?ID=30

http://www.classicsforkids.com/shows/showdesc.asp?id=30

http://www.classicsforkids.com/composers/bio.asp?id=25

Sibelius - Finlandia
Sibelius - Symphony 1 OR 2 (4 weeks)

http://www.classicsforkids.com/composers/bio.asp?id=52

It will help that dd has played some of these songs for years on piano! LOL

DS is really coming along in his reading and academic work. We still have our days but things are definitely better. I'm really proud of him.

January School Plans

I sat down today and laid out a plan for the month of January.

We will be using 12 workboxes each day now. It should go rather quickly, since some of the boxes don't take long at all, but I don't like putting more than 1 thing in each box. It causes ds to get overwhelmed and discouraged. And really, 12 things a day is PLENTY along with our other projects and activities we have going each week.

Here is what's in our workboxes for January:

#1 Digit Span & Exercises

#2 Bible reading and discussion

#3 History -Abraham Lincoln's World

#4 Written Narration

#5 Spelling

#6 Poetry M/W/F; U.S. Animal Flashcards T/TH

#7 Math Lesson

#8 Reading Lesson

#9 Math Game (Facts, review etc.)

#10 Grammar Game M/T; Lapbook W/Th; Presidents F

#11 Science - Observing God's World (This is new for us!)

#12 Literature - Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Wow it looks like a lot when I type it up. But even after I worked it out I noticed the lack of Fine Arts. I will add them back in February, maybe mixed in boxes 9 & 10 or box 1.

But it should be a good month.

I'm ready to get back to a routine!

Happy Homeschooling!!!

Finished!

We finally finished Oliver Twist!!!

It seemed like forever reading this book. But in reality, we read it in just under two months.

It was a great story, full of twists and connections.

What's in our workboxes lately

#1 Digit span and chore cards

#2 Bible reading and questions (Currently studying the life of David)

#3 History (Currently reading Abraham Lincoln's World)

#4 Daily writing - written narration and drawing from history

#5 All About Spelling Homophones

#6 Reading practice or phonics review

#7 Math drill or game

#8 Math lesson

#9 Poetry or Science Reading

#10 Copywork/Lapbooking

#11 Oliver Twist - listening and oral narration

#12 empty

We aren't really doing any in-depth science. I hope to get to that after the first of the year.

All in all we are getting a lot done and ds is getting TONS of reading and writing practice which he needs!!!!

Soccer Disappointment

Today ds had a soccer game scheduled at 3:00 at our local field. Last night his coach called and said there was a make-up game also at 1:00 in a town about 30-40 min away. Two games back to back wow! So we drove FORTY minutes away for game #1. When we arrived ds jumped out to go join his team, and came back and told me the other team forfeited. Great. The coach came over to talk to us and said, "No, they are saying WE forfeited. The time of the game was changed and we didn't show up. There's a huge miscommunication going on here."

No kidding.

He continued, "That's not all. Our 3:00 game is cancelled because of scheduling conflict. Only one field is playable and we can't play on the other one. So just go on back home."

Ds was really disappointed, not to mention that we made an hour and a-half round trip for nothing!

Oh well, at least we had ice-cream on the way home!

American Bald Eagle

The other day ds was looking out the front window, and announced, "Mom! I just saw a bald eagle!"

"Yeah, sure. I don't think so."

I went to the window and looked in the direction he pointed but saw nothing, however I did hear that screeching sound that I've heard on TV before. Maybe it was just a really big hawk and the sun shone on it's head and he *thought* it looked white, I reasoned.

But we got the binoculars out just the same and by that time whatever it was, was flying over our house.

It flew higher and higher and higher! Hmmmm, no birds around here can fly that high.

Trying to get those dad-gum binoculars focused.... wait, that bird is HUGE and well, he has a white head!

WOW, ds was right!

It really WAS a Bald Eagle!

It was so exciting!

I don't know what he was doing here, must've been just passing through.

I've never seen an eagle in our area, except in the zoo so that was an exciting moment for us.

Idea: Theme Fridays

I was checking out another homeschool blog and she mentioned "Theme Friday".

I think that's a great idea!

It gives you a day to take a break from the usual and fit in all those little things you never seem to have time for.

I think we'll try it!

What a blessing!

Today I purchased a lap book from A Journey Through Learning. Only when I opened it, I thought it didn't look right. I took a second look and I had accidentally downloaded the Unit Study by mistake. So I decided to go ahead and e-mail them and tell them what happened. They were so nice! I got an e-mail back with a link to the lapbook and the blessings to go ahead and use the Unit Study too! Thank you Lord!

I highly recommend this company on customer service alone.

I'll let you know how the lap booking goes.

BTW I bought the 19th Century lap book in case you're interested.

Workboxes and Planning

I can't believe it's just about time to start a "new" year for us! DD is graduated and on her way to college classes and work. Now it'll just be DS and me. Bittersweet.

I'll be rounding up what he's going to do next year but right now we are actually doing a bit of school every day. He really needs to keep in the habit and we are trying some neurological exercises we learned from Little Giant Steps and they need to be done consistently.

We have also been doing something called workboxes. Let me tell you, we LOVE them! They make everything run so smoothly now. I could post all about them but just check out these places for the best info.

Joyful Mother of 6 workboxes - ours look just like this.

Heart of the Matter workboxes.

There are many more but you'll get the gist of it from these two.

Once more I will say we love it!

Madlibs

I thought of a way to use Madlibs type books and make them reusable. They aren't that expensive and I recently picked up several at the Dollar Tree for $1 each. (Although this particular book came from big bro & wife.)

I decided to make them reusable because I though ds would have fun mixing them up himself and they would be great reading practice for him! Usually I do all the reading/writing and he just does the choosing.

I decided not to copy the words list and just go ahead and cut them out of the book, so that meant I only get every other puzzle. You could copy the word lists and print them out but I'm trying to save printer ink.

I used highlighters to coordinate the nouns, adjectives, verbs and misc. words. I do have a laminator but I just used contact paper here. It's cheaper.

Now, to find an easy way to store them and keep up with them! I think I will slip the page into a page protector and just toss the word strips in there too. We can sort the words before we begin.

Geography "Center" - Germany

German Geography Facts

Travels Through Germany

German Foods

Germany Weather

Germany Through a Kid's Eyes

Germany for Kids

File folder game

I'm working on a file folder game for a little sweet friend of mine. He has a hard time some days finding his "happy heart" as his mom calls it.

So I decided to make him his very own game.

I haven't made the cards yet but they will include situations - good and bad - that will either help him win the game, or set him back a few spaces. For instance, "Threw a fit - go back 2 spaces" or "Obeyed the FIRST time! - go ahead 1 space".

I'm not sure exactly how they will work, which is why I haven't made the cards yet.

I'm still thinking on it.

Here's the cover -

Here is the inside game board -


I used a photo of the boy and a couple of generic boys and girls for other players.

I also used velcro so that the pieces wouldn't slide around.

The Game pieces-


We've made several games over the years.

They are so much fun!

Multiplication Game

I made this game in powerpoint for my son to practice multiplication. It is self correcting. I got all the clip art off of the net and I hope I'm not violating any copyrights! (If so, I'll take it off and make a generic one.) I noticed that when I uploaded this I lost the "star wars" font. Oh well, you get the idea.

It works like this. He starts with the "Welcome" screen and then goes to problem number one. If he choose correctly he will see Yoda and then go to problem number two. If he chooses incorrectly he sees Darth Vader and will go back to problem number one, and so on.

I made other number sets. This one is "3's".

CJ's Multiplication