Wow. I guess it worked. Fine Arts was my “great failing” in homeschool high school. I tried to expose my kids to some Fine Arts during high school but, honestly, it was a pretty pathetic effort. Fast forward two years. According to facebook, here is what my son did this weekend at college:
Alex loved “The Marriage of Figaro” yesterday, went to the Seattle Art Museum today, and is going to “Rhapsody in Blue” at the Seattle Symphony tonight. The pattern is starting to damage my street cred…
Amazing!
When the kids were in high school., one of the things I did was buy the “Composers” CD collection from Costco one year (I know, pretty lame). During quiet reading and lunch, I would turn on the classical musics. They were given a one page biography of the composer we were listening to, but mostly it was just about listening to the music, and trying to identify the title of the piece now and then. It was certainly an inexpensive way to learn about classical music.
For artists, I simply went to the library. I would check out one book a week, usually something written for young adults so we could avoid nudes. They were able to read the small book quickly, and look over all the pieces the artist was famous for. It was a brief introduction. Apparently it was successful.
I’m amazed that someone like me, who is “not gifted in fine arts” can raise someone who enjoys it so much! Woo Hoo!
Audrey asks:
How do you balance what you feel they need to know and do with what they feel they want to know and do? There are not enough hours in the day!
This question is actually TWO questions!
Q1: How can you get more hours in your day?
To some extent, homeschoolers will ALWAYS feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day! It’s part of parenting, and even more a part of homeschooling. There are some things that can help. I read the book “Managers of Their Homes” and it really helped me. It is a book about scheduling your homeschool, so that you do the most important things FIRST. Determine what your priorities are, and then start with priority #1. The less important things may need to be less frequent.
A schedule will sometimes tell you what is going wrong. Sometimes parents will tell me what they are “trying” to do each day. When I add it up, they are trying to do too much! I remember one mother I met with was doing nine and a half hours a DAY doing academic subjects with her 9th grader. Maybe you are simply trying to do too much! So prioritize, and make sure you aren’t attempting too much.
It can also help to cut back on some of the things you do outside the home: co-op classes, sports teams, and music lessons, volunteering, employments, Boy Scouts, and church. Sometimes it’s all just too much! Again, try to decide what you really need and what’s important to you. Scale back your activities if you can. I encourage you to have your teen be part of the conversation, though. Their interests should carry a LOT of weight.
Q2: What do they need to know?
It’s important, as you say, to balance what they need to know, with what THEY want to do. If you can focus on just the basic, core classes, with limited fluff, then even in high school you can still get their schoolwork done in a reasonable amount of time. Math does take a long time each day, and it’s important because it builds on itself, so you can’t quickly regain math skills if you don’t keep up with it. Other things can be handled a bit more quickly, and with less stress.
Core subjects means one hour (not more) on English, social studies, science and math. Add some foreign language or PE or fine arts or electives. But focus on the core classes, and let the other things be more delight-directed, so that the child hardly even realizes they are doing school. Fine arts could be knitting and crochet. Foreign language may be successfully learned in 15-30 minutes per day. PE can be what they do for fun; dancing or sports.
Electives are the things you don’t assign – the things they just want to do! Maybe that’s animal husbandry or interior design – let them decide as much as possible. What do they need? Core classes, and the freedom to choose the supplemental classes that will encourage their love of learning.
I hope that helps!
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Deciding how much theater makes up a high school credit can be tricky. The general concept for all courses is 5 hours a week for a full year of school, so you can calculate whether that’s enough for a credit or for a half credit. There is no real “absolute” right and wrong answer. I really like right-and-wrong math questions, so I never felt really comfortable guessing on credit value. I always did the “5 hours per week” rule. If it’s easier, you could add it up all the hours together to decide the credit value.Most books say that 120-180 hours is a credit. Because sometimes performance week in theater can add an easy 40 hours, you may have an easier time just waiting until you have the total before you decide how many high school credits it’s worth. Remember that colleges are only looking for 1 credit of fine arts; and fine arts are a combination of music, art, theater and dance. If you think it’s enough, that’s great. If not, consider other supplements to make up the difference.
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It’s kind of twisted, really. I just love science! I am a nurse, so I have a big science and math background. But I just love it! When we did microscope work, I would find myself going in to look at the microscope by myself! I’m just curious… you folks who don’t like science, do you like art? Because I hate it! It is so messy, it would get my house so many crazy colors. My kids just didn’t “get it” with art. And art takes so many materials! You have to buy so much stuff just to paint one thing!We all have our weaknesses. I figure the things I don’t like are the things I really have to force myself to teach. The things I do like I will easily remember to teach, probably more than is necessary! (You should see the extra stuff we would do with the microscope!)
One year I purchased a Costco 10-CD pack of great composers. Neat, because each CD was a different composer. My idea was to have a “composer of the week.” We would just play a CD during lunch and maybe during math. I found portaits of the great composers on the web, that I would print. We read about them, sometimes online and sometimes from library books.
Another idea for music appreciation is “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” by The Teaching Company, www.teach12.com. It was our favorite lecture series. The teacher has a wonderful vocabulary, and my boys would take college level lecture notes in real time, while listening to the wonderful music content.
Blessings,
Lee
Visit Heart of the Matter to read my February column on Planning High School Courses.
>>>Did you plan the art studies or let them do it as they wanted? I debate a lot about whether its worth setting aside the time for art study.<<<Art is really, REALLY my weak area, so I actually set aside time for art study, otherwise we would never do it! We never had a problem getting math or science done, just art, LOL! I scheduled it for 2-3 times a week, 1-1/2 or 2 hours at a time, depending on the year. Even so, it was something that we sometimes just didn’t do. (Art is so messy, you know.) We did the book “Art Fun” the first year, the Feed My Sheep for two years, then Draw Today. We also did some pottery classes, and that was fun. I have some art games that they played, and there were some books on artists that I had them read over the years. If your kids just “do” art, then maybe you don’t really need art study. We NEEDED art study, because my kids didn’t ever DO it otherwise. In high school I taught them art mostly from an art history perspective, and art appreciation. I suppose in high school, it’s good to have some art appreciation course, but maybe other kids just naturally end up studying art without any help at all. Hey, Alex studied economics without any help! Kevin studied Russian History, of all things, without any encouragement! Just not art….
Blessings,
Lee
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>>>Did you plan the art studies or let them do it as they wanted? I debate a lot about whether its worth setting aside the time for art study.<<<
Bridget, Art was really, REALLY my weak area, so I actually set aside time for art study, otherwise we would never do it! We never had a problem getting math or science done, just art, LOL! I scheduled it for 2-3 times a week, 1-1/2 or 2 hours at a time, depending on the year. Even so, it was something that we sometimes just didn’t do. (Art is so messy, you know.) We did the book “Art Fun” the first year, the Feed My Sheep for two years, then Draw Today. We also did some pottery classes, and that was fun. I have some art games that they played, and there were some books on artists that I had them read over the years. If your kids just “do” art, then maybe you don’t really need art study. We NEEDED art study, because my kids didn’t ever DO it otherwise. In high school I taught them art mostly from an art history perspective, and art appreciation. I suppose in high school, it’s good to have some art appreciation course, but maybe other kids just naturally end up studying art without any help at all. Hey, Alex studied economics without any help! Kevin studied Russian History, of all things, without any encouragement! Just not art….
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