Our Homeschool Plans - Art, Music, and Foreign Language Selections - 2014-15

This is the third post on our plans for this year!  It was just too much to list it all in ONE post! 

In case you missed it, you can read about our Bible and History Selections here and our Language Arts, Science, and Math selections here.  Then come back to this post to see more!


With a Charlotte Mason education, we spread a "feast" before our children, and they learn to focus their attention on each subject for short periods of time throughout the school day.  The school day is relatively short, too!  We expect to be finished with "subject" work by lunch!  Then the afternoons will be free for nature study, learning an instrument, or working on a handicraft.


In addition to the subjects I have already posted about, we will include the following in our feast:

Drawing lessons
Artist Study
Music (hymn study included in Bible post)
Foreign Language
Poetry
Shakespeare
Physical Education
Citizenship


Today, I'll tell you about our Drawing Lessons, Artist Study, and Foreign Language!  (Stay tuned tomorrow for all the rest!)

DRAWING LESSONS:

I've purchased "Learn to Draw" from Notgrass Company!  It has thirty simply lessons inside, in which all three of my children can participate!  We will do one lesson each week.


ARTIST STUDY:

This is one I am very excited about!  I have never been one to take time to really LOOK at art.  But I am learning, the more I see art and read about the artists, that it is something I AM interested in, if only I take the time for it.  We will choose one artist per term, and do a picture study from that artist each week.  I hope to take one day to look and discuss each picture, and one day to do our own reproductions and interpretations.  Imagine us on the deck with paintbrushes in hand, creating our best Monet!

The only difference is that, this year, I will be focusing on American artists.  Our history will be American history, so I want to study six American artists.  We will do two artists per 12-week term.  I am still compiling my list, but I know we will begin with Mary Cassatt. 

Two of the resources we will use:

Come Look With Me: Art in Early America

Great American Artists for Kids: Hands-On Art Experiences in the Styles of Great American Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning (TM))


FOREIGN LANGUAGE:

We are going to dip our toes into TWO languages this year.  I know a little of each, and I hope that we will be able to learn a lot in both!  One is the foreign language of Spanish, but the other is not-so-foreign.  The second is American Sign Language (ASL).  My mom is fluent, and has recommended a great resource to me that we will use.  For Spanish, we will use the program that Simply Charlotte Mason recommends.

For Spanish, I will be ordering "Speaking Spanish With Miss Mason and Francois".  I am excited to try this program for the first time!  It will be different than the Spanish courses I took in high school and college!

For ASL, we will use The Joy of Signing Complete Learning Package.  This is the one my mom recommended!  (She worked 20 years for a deaf school, so she should know!) 

We will also utilize the free sign language lessons available online at Lifeprint. 


There you have it!  Art, music, and foreign language!  Just one more post, and you will have our complete list for this year!