Posts

Showing posts from May, 2019

Lullabies and Folk Songs

Image
I remember when my kids were little and we had all the baby gadgets that would play electronic melodies, I would sing along with the words of many of these melodies and wonder, "How many people actually know or remember these songs?" There are recent articles like this one, that have stated many new mothers in our current generation are not singing lullabies like previous generations.  You really can't do anything to replace that bond you make with your babies when you hold and sing to them!  I found these other articles very interesting and will link them here: New York Times Mother.ly ABC News The take away I feel is that nothing should stop us from singing to our babies.  Even if it's just your favorite song on the radio, worship chorus, etc.  In my opinion, also preserving the folk heritage through the old songs is important and I would love to see more families take time to commit the classics to memory!  I think that can culturally enrich us as a gener

Year 1 and 3 Wrap Up

Image
"School's out for summer......" kind of!  We officially wrapped up our Year 3 and Year 1 today after a week of term exams and going over our subjects in the curriculum!  My heart is so full and I'm thankful for two amazing kids that God has blessed and gifted us with!    This year we modified our curriculum to fit our lifestyle and library and it worked VERY well!  If you're curious about our curriculum, here is the post to the planning post at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year .  A few things were modified throughout the year but the format we used for this booklist and schedule worked very well and we will be continuing the next year using the same idea! When I think back on the year, a few huge successes stick out to me: Eva Mae is reading!  At the end of this school year, she is reading chapters from our fun science reader called "Animals Do the Strangest Things."  We were inconsistent with weekly Charlotte Mason reading lesso

Folk Songs and Hymns for 2019-2020

Image
The past year I have been collecting some amazing books that will be the spine for our folk songs and hymns.  I sat down to plan out the year and type the lyrics in for our Morning Basket Menu and wanted to share the list with you and links to recordings! (I'll try to make a post about our menu at a later date!  My friend bulk ordered a bunch of restaurant menus so we can put in our scripture, songs, art, etc. to study for each term!) First of all, the folk song collection that I have and love is "The Fireside Book of Folk Songs" - it is beautifully illustrated and is a wonderful collection of folk songs around the world! View this post on Instagram My newest old book collection came in and I am in LOVE with these and wish I had known about them when I was in the music classroom! The illustrations are gorgeous! The selections will make up our folk song rotations for the rest of the kids’ education! A

2019-2020 Composer Study

Image
The past 4 years I have been following the rotation for composer and art mostly from the Ambleside Online website but feel strongly that giving my kids an opportunity to attend live music performances of our composer study is the best course to take in our planning!  For that reason, we will be studying Puccini in our Term 1 and attend the opera Madame Butterfly! Tchaikovsky's selections will give us several live performances including the Nutcracker in Term 2.  Term 3 will be Mozart and we hopefully will find a performance locally - or mommy will just play some Mozart repertoire on the piano! LOL! At the end of this post I will give links for those of you near Nashville to also attend local performances! Puccini - Classics For Kids 1. Madame Butterfly Overture 2. Madame Butterfly Un Bel Di 3. La Boheme Overture  4. La Boheme Musetta's Waltz 5. Gianni Schicchi O mio babbino caro 6. Tosca Overture Tchaikovsky - Classics For Kids 1. Nutcracker Suite 2

2019-2020 Artist Study

Image
My favorite time of the year! Planning! I love curating our education to fit with all the wonderful opportunities we have in the area! This year, the local art museum will have three exhibits throughout the year that we will schedule along with our three terms. The first is Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the second is a Native American art exhibit, and the third is J.M.W. Turner! Term 1 - Download the PDF - Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera The biography can be a bit dark with some of the physical and political aspects of their lives, but I do think that the color and vibrancy of a lot of the selections within our museum's exhibit will be enjoyable to the kids! In the downloadable PDF you can read my biography synopsis that I will read to my kids.  We also will be checking out a few books from the public library that are geared toward elementary students. Term 2 - Download the PDF - Oscar Howe Our museum will have a collection of Native American art.  Oscar Howe is not repr