My Favourite Time of Year

Field Trip :: To the Theatre: Annie

Yesterday, we went with other homeschoolers to see a production of Annie at the Migration Hall . It was amazing! The sets were very well done, the acting and singing perfect, even the costumes were right on! We didn't take photos or videos during the musical, but here are two favourite songs:

The Great Canadian Beaverfest ~ Their First Concert!

The girls and I went to Beaverfest yesterday. Beaverfest was an outdoor three-day concert featuring Canadian talent. You can read more about it here. Sunday was for all ages and we decided to give it a try. There were three artists performing over the course of the afternoon. We saw Keshia Shante, Shawn Desman, and Fefe Dobson.

This was Celeste's and Adrienne's first experience at a modern music concert (we have been to the orchestra before) and they both really enjoyed it. Even though the artists weren't top hits, I think it was perfect for introducing them to live concerts of this kind. The crowd wasn't crazy, there was a lot of space to move around and we were outside. Celeste was able to dance around and even play with the free beach balls they were handing out. We all enjoyed watching the mascot (a beaver of course!) interact with everyone too!

The next concert on our wish list... WE Day!

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Finishing Up!

This time of year is all about finishing up. Even if we enjoy the curriculum or plans we use, we still really enjoying seeing the end of it! It always feels nice to say we have completed this subject or that subject for this "school year".

This week, Adrienne finished her Growing with Grammar 8 workbook. Next year, she will be using a different curriculum for grammar practice since this particular one finishes with grade 8. It is unfortunate because we have really enjoyed it.

In World Geography, we only have one week left! We will study Antarctica next week and then that will be done. I will be writing soon about our plans for next year's geography. We are all looking forward to it!

We also completed our Music and Art Appreciation this week with our study of Antonin Dvorak. Did you know that one of his symphonies, Symphony No. 9, travelled with the space shuttle Appollo 11 in 1969 to the moon? It is a beautiful piece of music. The kids and I enjoyed listening to many parts of his Symphony No. 9 (also called New World Symphony) while we finished work on our artists timeline. You can listen to a part of it in the video below.

We continued with the Mind Maps for Kids book, completing the second chapter which explained what to do with the mind maps. The assignment involved making up a fictional story about a lost jug. My kids complained as usual at first, but then their creativity came through and they had a good time working on their mind maps and all their ideas about the lost jug.

The homeschool swimming lessons are almost finished and Celeste has done great! She really enjoys these lessons and can now almost swim by herself!


If you would like to read more wrap-up posts, you can visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Who are your Top 10 Classical Composers?

Afternoon Practice by Laurie Pace.

The New York Times is asking you to vote on your favourite classical composers. There is more than just an article though, there is a series of videos where Anthony Tommasini, the chief musical critic, talks about these great classical composers, mixing some of the history of each composer and also playing the piano, explaining more about certain pieces so we can really appreciate the music.

I learned about this from Christina at Rockhound Place. When I visited the links she posted, I thought this would be great for our music appreciation! I was planning on getting back to our art & music appreciation this Friday, and this will be perfect. We will watch together the videos and can talk about which ones are our favourites, and then vote.

You can visit the main article which explains the story behind the idea of the vote: The Greatest. I especially like this quote: "So if you were to try to compile a list of the 10 greatest composers in history, how would you go about it? For me the resulting list would not be the point. But the process of coming up with such a list might be clarifying and instructive, as well as exasperating and fun."

You can also go straight to the video series and the voting page: Top 10 Composers .

Planning for 2010-11 :: Writing, Art & Music Appreciation

I haven't received everything for our writing curriculum yet, but here is my plan.
This past year, Adrienne and I have been using the Write Source 2000 as a reference for her writing assignments.
The history curriculum that we use, History Odyssey, has many writing assignments and Andre and Adrienne do a few of these per month. Most of these are biographies, research papers, narration, or even some opinion papers (one was which middle ages time period occupation would you like?).  We will continue with the same format this year.
I did add one more writing curriculum for Adrienne, the Jensen's Format Writing. We will probably take two years to complete this. Once I receive it, I will be able to plan out her year. She is starting grade 8 this coming year, and I want her to be completely confortable with writing essays. You can read a quick review of this program here .

For Andre, along with the history assignments, I will start using Story Starters this year. I have used this in the past with Adrienne, and I think it is a much more interesting way to get our writing done than a regular curriculum or textbook. You can read a review for this book here . Celeste will be starting oral narration with this too, using the black and white illustrations as a starting point. I will write them down for her or type them.

I try to keep writing assignments fun and interesting. I know that my children write better and more without even thinking about it if they are inspired by the assignment.
I see the Writing Source 2000 and the Jensen's Format Writing as tools to help us with writing, not as curriculum.

We will be using Sequential Spelling for the first time this year.
Celeste will continue with the Explode the Code workbooks. Since those include handwriting practice, I didn't order any extra for now. 

Art and music appreciation. It is always something I want to include in our homeschooling, but we haven't been consistent. We do get around to do some, but it has only been once in a while in the past.
This year, I decided to purchase a plan from Harmony Fine Art. I chose the Grade Seven plan, even though none of my children are in that grade, because it mirrors the time period that we are studying in history.
I have looked at this plan and already I am so pleased with it. It is simple and has 3 different options on how to use it. I can adjust it so that it can be used with all 3 of my children. I am really looking forward to this!



Once I am finished sharing all my plans for 2010-11, I might do a post where I talk about our schedule and how we fit it all in.

an appreciation post

Harmony Art Mom is one of my favourite blogs, and she also sells some of her plans at Harmony Fine Arts. She writes many useful posts about how to include music and art appreciation in your homeschool.


The whole blog is worth reading, but there is a ton of information, so here is one of the latest post about music appreciation that I appreciated. It includes links to logs which are free to download.


Appreciating great music: for children and moms too.


Barb also hosts Sketch Tuesday and another blog of hers is the Handbook of Nature Study blog, which my family takes part in regularly.


I will probably never meet her in person, but I think the work she does for homeschoolers is awesome! I have recommended her blog to many homeschool moms and will continue to do so. If you have never visited her blogs, but are interested in music and art appreciation or nature study, take a few moments to visit her using the links I added throughout this post!

A morning at the Symphony Orchestra

What a great education concert!

We all enjoyed the beautiful music played by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. We attended Percussion Power and the conductor was excellent at explaining the different instruments from the percussion section and the different pieces we listened to.

Photography wasn't allowed during the concert, so I took these photos before the performance. As part of the percussion performance, we also listened to instruments from different parts of the world. From the Middle East, we heard the doumbek. Two First Nations drummers came and played their big drum and sang for us. 

We will be looking forward to attending more of these concerts in the future.

The Capitol Theatre where the concert too place was also a wonderful place to see. This particular theatre was built in 1920 by Thomas W. Lamb, one of North America's premiere early 20th century theatre designers, and renovated in 1995.

Learning about the Orchestra

We will be attending an educational concert at the Windsor Symphony Orchestra very soon. In preparation, we spent some time last month learning about the Orchestra and the different instruments.

I used The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine as our spine. This book is organized into two main sections, the composers and the instruments. We focused on the second part this time, the orchestra instruments. The book includes an audio CD and most pages prompt you to play a certain track. We listened to small samples of music that highlighted each of the instruments from the orchestra.

We enjoyed a few picture books were available at our local library:

The Story of the Incredible Orchestra by Bruce Koscielniak
Mole Music by David McPhail
Animal Music by Harriet Zieffert
Little Rat Makes Music by Monika Bang-Campbell
The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket

We listened to "Elmo and the Orchestra", found in the CD section at our library. I had picked up this one mostly for Celeste, but we all enjoyed it! I was surprised how it included works by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky. It was really well done and tied in perfectly with our main book.

We also found at our library (we love our library!) a Reading Rainbow DVD with a theme of music and orchestra. It is called "Music, Music, Everywhere". It was also a perfect addition to our study.

This time, we didn't put together a lapbook or notebook. I did find a few sites that might interest you if you are planning on doing this type of study.

Orchestra Lapbook Unit
Classical Music Lapbook

Instruments of the Orchestra (quick matching game - sound to its instrument)
Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (a great game!)

Classics for Kids (games, radio show, and more...this is another wonderful site)

Learning about the orchestra at our house was just an introduction, but I know we will get back to this study in the future and take advantage of all the wonderful *free* resources that are available on the internet!

Book Sharing Monday :: The Composer is Dead

For the last couple of weeks, we have been doing an informal unit study on the orchestra. We will be attending an education concert in April at the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and I thought it would helpful to learn a little bit more about the orchestra before we go. I will be sharing what we are doing in a seperate post.

One book that we have really enjoyed is written by Lemony Snicket, with an accompanying CD by Nathaniel Stookey. The title is "The Composer is Dead" and the book is an excellent story that takes us through the different sections of the orchestra.

"We were doing bird imitations," said the Flutes, the shiniest and highest pitched of the woodwinds. "It seems like that's all we ever do. Whenever the orchestra needs a bird, there we are."

podcasts and music

I just discovered podcasts a few days ago.

You might be wondering why I added a photo of Orion with this post, but it is related to the podcasts!
I walk our puppy every morning and every evening, for close to one hour each time. Most of the time I am by myself with him, and so I have gotten into the habit of bringing Adrienne's ipod with me and listening to music.

I noticed a few days ago a series of podcasts on Harmony Fine Arts blog, downloaded it and listened during one of our walks. I also found out about Creative Mom Podcasts. I enjoyed both, but I thought, there has to be a lot more to choose from out there!

I am curious and interested in finding out what your favourite podcasts are and if you can share some links for podcasts about home schooling, teaching our children, or being creative...anything that is interesting really! Maybe there is a podcast about history or science that you would recommend..

About music..I haven't really thought much about music for myself over the last few years. I have given more focus to the music that my children listen to and to music connected to our homeschooling (classical music for example).

I have tried the free selections from Starbucks, those little cards with a code for a free download on itunes. Some of them have been nice surprises. I have never been too picky with music, even growing up, I enjoyed a wide variety of music, but I just haven't given much thought about it over the last decade!

Again, I am curious to know what is on your mp3 player? What do you enjoy listening to, just for yourself?

Free Art and Music Appreciation Plan from Harmony Art Mom!

Barbara at Harmony Art Mom has put together a free pdf art and music appreciation plan for this summer! You can go and visit her site for more information. I have been looking at her middle grade art and music appreciation for Adrienne's next school year, so we will be "testing" this free pdf during this summer. The musician studied is Felix Mendelssohn and the painter is Claude Monet.

You can click on the button above for direct link or follow this: free six-week art and music appreciation study.