Introduction and Welcome

Welcome to All Things Bright and Beautiful. If you are new to this site, I would recommend that you read my very first entry - which is an introduction and welcome to this blog. You can view it here

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Introduction and Welcome to All Things Bright and Beautiful!!

Friends have sometimes said to me, I'd love to do picture study and classical music and poetry with my children, but I just never find the time.  If you find yourself in this position and would like to share these things with your children but just don't know where to begin or don't have the time to prepare, or maybe you'd just like a little culture in your life but don't have time to pursue it on your own this blog is a gift for you. I enjoy sharing classical music, art and poetry with my children and wanted to invite others to share the wonder and beauty of what we are discovering together.  I hope to post regularly - hopefully weekly so you can use these in your home school if you would like.  We will look at one artist's work for a few weeks in a row and one composer's work and a poet in that way, also.  I hope to give a little introduction and perhaps a few links the week we switch to a new composer, artist or poet.  Since all three are new this time, I may stagger the introductions through the next few weeks.


Picture Study:  Charlotte Mason recommends that we expose our children to great art and let them make their own connections.  Look carefully at the pictures - teach your children to focus and pay careful attention.  Then put the picture out of sight and ask them to narrate (tell back) what they remember.  Then look at the picture again.  If you enjoy these studies but want to pursue them further there are ideas below.


The pictures I plan to use are in the public domain as they are over 100 years old, so they are free to be used by all - no copyrights to worry about.  You can copy and print them as you will.  It's helpful to have them on display for your family to become familiar with.  You can print them in photograph size for each of your students or get an 8 X 10  or larger printed to display.  You could keep these in a notebook in plastic sleeves comparing one artist's works over the weeks and collecting artists you are familiar with over time.  Our local Office Max prints 8 1/2 x 11 color cardstock print for just over a $1.  You can copy and paste the picture into a document and take it in on a disc or flash drive and get it printed.  Alternately you may want to buy a book of the artists work or borrow one from your library with the artist's work. I will be choosing works that are acceptable for family viewing but many artists have nude pictures etc. so you may want to be careful when purchasing or borrowing books.  You can check online first and see a sampling of an artist's work.  Artcyclopedia would be a good site to check for samples of many artists works. 


If your family is new to classical music it may take time to begin to really enjoy it.  Our brains have trails or pathways that information travels and areas that are more visited than others.  We enjoy what we are familiar with.  New foods, new styles, new music all becomes more enjoyable as we become accustomed to it.  I read once that a missionary to a tribe in the jungle introduced them to Jello.  Everyone likes Jello, right?  These people did not!!  They said, "It's alive in our mouth!" and spit it out.  What we are accustomed to from our childhood is what we go back to and enjoy.  It may take time for your family to begin to actually enjoy classical music.  You will want to find ways to make it familiar - playing each piece more than once if possible throughout the week.  Your children may want to color or work on other hand work while they listen or you could play the piece during lunch each day.  Listening to Mozart has been proven to improve your mathematical reasoning skills as well as your ability to learn a new language.  It makes connections across your brain - those trails again.  Baroque music (a style of classical music which includes Bach, Beethoven and Mozart) has been shown to slow your heart rate to a relaxed and healthy 60 beats per minute.  It takes more work to listen when the music is new, like making a new trail through the woods, but when it becomes familiar you will enjoy it on a subconscious level and reap benefits of health and increased brain ability as well as enjoyment.

Our family has very much enjoyed learning about many composers through the Music Masters series.  Each CD covers the life of one composer interspersing samples of his music with a narration of his life story. I purchased mine through Rainbow Resource Center for $3.50.  You can probably get them other places too.  If you haven't already started you can build up a collection of classical CDs slowly.  Rainbow Resource Center also has some inexpensive - Best of... CDs.  I watch second hand stores, too.  Of course your local library will have classical music on CD.  You can also find many pieces performed on You-tube.  It's nice to listen to a whole CD of one composer's work for a time so that you become familiar with his style.  

Check out the playlist at the bottom of the blog. I will be adding pieces to it regularly as we have new composers.  You can use this to continue listening to the music in your home.  


I enjoy collecting books of poetry.  I've received them as gifts, and found them at yard sales, second hand stores, and used book sales.  I've even purchased one or two new.  A book of children's poetry can often be found in our stack of library books.  Our youngest, now five, actually enjoys sitting and listening through a book of poetry for young children.  You may have to pick and choose which you read as values come through both the poetry and the pictures.  I am usually drawn to the older books with their simpler more realistic art work and classic poetry.  Rod and Staff has a nice book of poetry by grade level for memorizing, Poems for Memorization.  You can also find poetry online. 


Don't let any of this become overwhelming - it shouldn't be a duty, but a joy to share beauty with your children do as much or as little as you can do well and cheerfully. The above ideas are just in case you want to pursue these further or want to begin searching on your own.  Making it easy is the point of this blog.


The human heart is drawn to beauty and I believe it is a reflection of the Creator.  All things good and lovely originate with Him and ultimately point to Him.  I hope that you and your children will find joy and inspiration in the works recommended on this blog.

16 comments:

  1. I heard about your blog in the BAHA newsletter. I am also a local homeschooler.
    I think this is a neat blog that you are creating! I hope to use the resources that you are sharing.
    One way that my kids have really enjoyed learning about classical music and the composers is from a CD series called "Classical Kids". Each different CD features a composer with a dramatized story about them and featuring a bunch of their music. My kids love listening to them and now when they here music somewhere else they will say something like: "I think Beethoven wrote that".

    Appreciating fine art is something I have had a harder time with. It is easy to get frusterated with all the raunchy stuff out there. I like the ones you have featured.

    Thanks again for providing this resource!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad I found you...I'm a fellow student of Charlotte Mason! And I'm following you now! http://littlehomeschoolblessings.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Welcome Bethany! I hope you find it a blessing. If you don't care for a given artist, composer or poet sometime - you might enjoy some of the wonderful ones we have featured in the past. Some of my favorite artists are Thomas Cole, Millet, Rembrandt, Joseph Farqueharson and Beauguereau or if you're studying birds you might be interested in Audubon. Some of my favorite composers that we have already featured are Carulli, Handel and Haydn but children often enjoy Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals. My favorite poets include Amy Carmichael and Emily Dickinson. You can use the search to find these or look to see if we've covered someone you are interested in or just browse back through old posts for something that catches your eye. If you have any suggestions please feel free to contact me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am going to start incorporating the Charlotte Mason method into our home school. I appreciate the time and effort you have put forth on this blog. I am in love with listening to the beautiful music as I explore!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Welcome!! Thank you for taking time to let me know you're here and enjoying my blog. Feel free to leave questions or comments anytime - it's always a blessing to interact with others over the music, art and poetry!

      Delete
  5. Oh, my. I have just found you via simplycharlottemason. I am near tears!! THIS is what I've been looking for!!!! As a person who did not grow up with classical music OR artist study OR poetry, I am deeply indebted to you and ever so grateful for your ministry here!!!!!! These are some of the ideas I love most about the Charlotte Mason method and yet I had been at a loss as *how* to teach something I never grew up with. You are a huge BLESSING to me and my family. THANK YOU. Ever so much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Sarah: I am so glad you found my blog! You may want to browse through some of the old posts as especially at first there were some fun pieces for children (Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf are two that my children have especially enjoyed through the years and the entry's from Haydn's creation with wonderful video footage of nature were some of my favorites), but suit yourself - you can just jump ahead to where we are and work with us there, too. I'm presently spending about 12 weeks on one composer, one artist and one poet. We'll be switching again in September. If you have questions or comments please feel free to leave them. Blessings on the journey!

      Delete
  6. I have found another question: How long do you recommend studing each painting/ song? Is one blog post a week what's recommended or one a day?
    Thanks again! (I'm really enjoying using your blog in our homeschool days!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I use one painting, one piece of music and at least one new poem a week. Sometimes we read random poetry other times besides the one featured on this blog. You could show the painting and talk about it one day and ask them to tell you about it from memory another day. It's nice if the painting can sit out where they can see it and perhaps even compare more than one work by the same artist. One mom said she uses the weekly piece of art as her computer desktop for the week..... :) There isn't a right and wrong - you can do it more often if it suits you and your children enjoy it. But if you do it regularly over a long period of time, even once a week covers a LOT of paintings and at the present rate, four artists per year. I guess if you did it twice a week that would be eight artists per year. But you want the children to get a feel for an artist, composer of poet so that they can sense his work when they see or hear it as well as have an appreciation and memory of particular works. As far as music, I like to let them hear it more than once because it becomes more familiar more easily. It's easy to play a piece while you do something else or even a whole CD by a particular composer. I know that Charlotte expected her students to pay attention in a way that they took things in on the first study. I'm not always skilled enough myself at focusing and taking it all in at once - I enjoy the repeats so I usually only cover them formally once, but may expose them again through the week on an informal basis if we have time. Busy weeks we only get in the one exposure to my blog. We do listen to music other times and often play pieces or composers that have become favorites over time. I'm so glad you are enjoying this with your children!! Blessings! Patti

      Delete
  7. Hi Patti: I found you from the Practical Pages blog. I love the art you have selected and the weekly music and poetry. As we have been on our own pace of studying these things, sometimes faster, sometimes not at all :), I hoped I could utilize what you've done if it matched up with what we're studying now. Have you ever considered posting a list of whom you've covered in past years and months? I know I could look through your archives, but my day doesn't allow for that currently. Thanks so much again!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I also found your blog through Practical Pages. I would love it if you had a search button or a list of composers/artists/poets. We are working our way through chronologically, and having such a list would be so helpful. Keep of the lovely work.
    P.S. The music playing is wonderfully relaxing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for taking time to leave a comment! There is a search button just under the slide-show on the right side, so you can look up composers, artists and poets by name. I am thinking of making a listing of them by date also that could be downloaded, but I haven't had a block of time to work on it yet. I'm so glad you've joined us - hope you find it helpful!!

      Delete
  9. Hi, Patty! I have just discovered your blog (also through Practical Pages). Thank you for all your hard work and all the beautiful music and paintings! I look forward to using this website with our homeschooling. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I too found you through Practical Pages and am so happy I did! I can not wait to share this wonderful resource with my little K5er (who loves Classical music already and has recently shown an interest in watercolor paintings???)... I know this will enrich our studies of the fine arts! Thank you so much for taking your time to provide us all with this information!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am so glad to have found your blog. Although I "only" have 6 blessings (schooling 5), at times I feel stretched too thin. What a wonderful resource which will cut my research time down significantly. :) Thank you for all of your hard work and willingness to share!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Tracy: So glad you found the blog... I enjoyed putting it together. I'm in a very busy stage of my life with caring for my Mother so I'm wrapping up a unit then I probably won't post any more but there are several years worth of posts - so I hope you enjoy them. I'm not sure if some of the You-tube music will be outdated, but you could search by the composer or by the title of the piece of music and there should be new posts available. Also, I don't think my playlist is working anymore, but you can often find playlists for the composer of your choice on Youtube - often called, "the best of _____" Blessings! Patti

      Delete