Fine Arts ~ September

Our Fine Arts bulletin board is now up! I found the perfect empty wall space facing the boys' bedroom door, so they will see it every time they come out of their room. Excellent. I used an old bulletin board I had and painted the cork black. Then I used foam letter stamps to paint Poetry, Words, Music, and Art at the top. (Okay, so the words aren't perfect, but better done imperfectly than not at all....)

Artist: Francisco Goya

I printed the Goya page from the Famous Artist Wall Chart (scroll down a bit to #2) at Practical Pages. This is posted on our Fine Arts bulletin board. Then I printed the featured work by Goya at Garden of Praise along with the description at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for our picture study (which will also be posted on the bulletin board when not in use). We will do a few of the Goya activities at Garden of Praise and read Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Francisco Goya.

(All printed pages for the bulletin board go in page protectors. Printed worksheets are saved in the same sleeve as the picture study for easy access. Each month, we'll take down the pages and put them in a fine arts 3-ring binder with tabs each for artists, composers, and poets.)


Composer: Henry Purcell

We are reading about Henry Purcell at Wikipedia (and listening to samples of his music!). I printed his portrait with basic biography information for our bulletin board. I have the DVD of Purcell's opera, Dido and Aeneas in my collection, so we will dust it off and watch it.

Selections from YouTube:

Poet: William Shakespeare

I've posted previously about our Shakespeare studies. This time around, we'll be reading about Shakespeare in A Child's Introduction to Poetry and enjoying Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare. I also printed his portrait (from Wikipedia) along with one of his poems for our bulletin board.

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

by William Shakespeare

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Reasonable Words:

To go with our theme quote for fine arts studies ‎("One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), I thought I would add a few reasonable words to our bulletin board each month. I'm using Proverbs and Idioms from A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. (We will also use the proverbs for handwriting copy work during the month and those pages will go in the fine arts notebook.)

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Little strokes fell great oaks.