The Art of Beethoven
Sometimes I get homeschool so wrong.
And sometimes I get it a little better than that.
But mostly I am in the middle of the mundane.
And I get weighed down
with the lists I fail to complete
the schedules I forget to follow
the mess and mire that swirls and settles on our house of a Monday.
I can get pretty lost pretty fast.
Which is why
moments like the following
can shock the sunshine right back into my day.
I have this idea for our homeschool for a weekly music lesson.
(And by “I have this idea” I really mean “Charlotte Mason had this idea”.)
We study one specific composer for 12 weeks. (3 composers per year.)
Each week we study a little bit about the composer – Beethoven is our man this term.
And weekly we listen to a different piece of his work.
We listen to it as we eat breakfast (if we can hear over Wilder’s howls for more cinnamon toast).
We listen to it as we drive to art class, the library, the grocery store and anywhere the wheels of the Suburban may lead us.
And once a week we sit down at the kitchen table
turn up the iPod
and draw.
The kids have their special notebooks open with their quality art pencils poised and ready.
Beethoven rocks the house
and their fingers start spinning.
They just draw what they imagine the music is saying.
And it’s beautiful.
It’s overwhelming to me.
I just stopped what I was doing
and watched
them
create.
I memorized it in my mind.
It made my heart hurt.
Wilder sat in his booster seat and hit Legos together in time and swayed his tiny fists to the beat.
Piper Finn scribbled red and blue lines up and down and up and down and up and down.
Mosely and Bergen and London did not make a sound.
Not for the first six minute song.
Nor the second eight minute song.
This is what they heard.
7 Comments
emma
Um, so I guess I have seriously not read your blog in a week. I don't know why. Anyways, I love this and want to do the same. And London's artwork is TRULY amazing. They're all good and creative…but she truly has a gift- especially to come up with that all on her own. Can she draw me something this week? Alright, going to go comment on your other posts. They're all really good:) Love ya!
LaceyKeigley
Sure – London loves to complete commissioned pieces.
I want to buy some canvas so she can do something large and on our wall.
She has this one sunshine coming over a mountain that I think is adorable.
amy
Can I send my kids to your school? We could name it something great and then I could supply snacks…and be the P.E. teacher.. 🙂 That is probably all I could do.
I love how you teach your kids. They are so blessed to have you as their teacher.
That London, she can flat out draw! I'm excited to see where that takes her one day.
LaceyKeigley
A deal.
I need a cool name.
And actually – that would be fun.
You can cover science too.
Probably math also.
Plus – you just add an extra cool factor that we be needin\’!
Gretchen
LOVE!!!!! Oh, you know I so want some way to embrace music for the kids. Thanks for sharing this b/c I am totally going to use it!!!! I have just been happy for them to watch Backyardigans b/c of the varied music in the program and for me just to play on the keyboard the Classical pieces that are already stored inside… Ha ha ha! I really think that is a fabulous way to learn!!! So did you buy some Beethoven CD's wanna burn em for me?? FABULOUS!!!!
LaceyKeigley
I like this way because it is sooo easy.
I bought them on iTunes.
And YouTube actually has videos of the pieces being performed in concert that we sometimes watch.
I usually check out a book on the composer at the library but I also have this one really fun book – I\’ll look up the title for you – that has a great drawing of each composer and about two pages of very funny, interesting stories about each composer.
Amanda
really,really,really beautiful