Have I Got A Story For You! (A REVIEW)

I love doing art in our homeschool, and I love finding great programs to help us get excited about art history too!  That is why I am thrilled to be talking to you about the HiGASFY Art History Video Series. This great video series of 4 different art history time periods features an art teacher and her little paint drop friend telling stories about artists and paintings in fun and interactive ways.

Mrs. Beth and her paint drop friend "Gasfy."

With the art history bundle that we received, we also had lesson plans to go with each video, and other helps like "name that artist" powerpoint presentations to help reinforce the artwork the kids saw throughout the videos. There are many ways to view/purchase these videos. All of the DVD's can be purchased for each art history time period, or there is also a monthly subscription. We received a 3-month subscription. So, we were able to watch all of our videos through YouTube links given to us. That allowed me to cast it anywhere (laptop, computer, TV) there was an internet connection. We usually chose to watch it together on the big screen.

Mrs. Beth telling a story. She really does a great job making stories come to life.

All three of my boy's grades 3, 6, and 8 watched the videos together. I, of course, did too! The videos are fun and educational for about grades 1-8, although my 8th grader did think he was a little too cool for it he still watched anyway (and he learned too). There's a great deal of artwork and artists to learn about, so it's packed with information. There's no shortage of great classical artwork and stories all throughout the videos. I feel like this is one of those curriculum choices that you can use for such a wide range of ages. While my 8th grader is at the end of the age-range for this series, I think he still got a lot from it especially since he hasn't really studied art history too much before.

As I mentioned earlier there are 4 different periods of art history videos that we could choose from. We started with the Impressionist period. Within each period there are 16 lessons and 12 videos to watch, so there is a video to watch with most of the lessons. Here's how a lesson works: watch a video, pick one or two of the suggested activities to go along with it, discuss critical thinking questions, look at the vocabulary, and complete a short writing assignment. Not every lesson has a video and some don't have writing, but that's the basic flow of a lesson if we are following the lesson plan.

The beginning of one of the videos shows the cute little paint drop.

I tried to incorporate as much of the lesson plan into the art history lesson as the boys would sit for, but the part they loved the most was usually the suggested activities. I thought the vocabulary/art terms were important to go over, so I wrote them on a whiteboard for all to see.

Art history has vocabulary too!

One of the best "suggested activities" for the Monet lesson was to paint outside. My boys absolutely loved this activity. After watching the video, we gathered our paints and went outside. It really was a life-changing experience as it was for Monet!

My 3rd grader just loved painting outside like Monet.

I had some old canvases that we hadn't used yet, and lots of paint from past years, so we just brought everything to a local park. I let them decide what they wanted to paint, whether it was something from the park, or whatever they could dream up. The whole point of the experience was to just be outside in fresh air painting. Although, I did encourage them to pick something from the scene around them.

My 6th grader did a big canvas and a tiny canvas for fun.

We tried a few different ways of painting because we only had one real art easel. First, he tried painting on this easel, but it didn't work. Getting comfortable painting outside is a good idea.

So he ended up just laying it flat on the table...

My 3rd grader chose to paint the park scene with the dinosaur bones and trees.

We spent at least 90 minutes at the park, and these boys were patient enough to see their work through to the end. They were both proud of their work! (The 8th grader didn't join us for this activity)

3rd grade finished product

6th grader finished product.

Aric, the 6th grader decided not to do a scene, but to do some abstract art instead, and as you can see I had some fun painting the apron while the boys were doing their art pieces...

I decided to paint "HIGASFY" on my apron. It made the boys smile, and now I will have a fun story to share every time I paint with my apron!

Overall, I love the HiGASFY Art History Video Series! It is engaging, fun, and really inspiring. I highly recommend giving this a try if you want a fun way to teach art history in your homeschool.

HIGASFY website

If you'd like to see what other crew members had to say about this curriculum you can click on the image below.

Wordless Wednesday

When musical doodles during a church meeting become a mini-music lesson from the big sister.

Easy Grammar (A REVIEW)

We have needed a quick easy way to get some grammar in every day for my 3rd grader, so I was thrilled to try out Easy Grammar:  Grade 3. I needed something that is straight to the point, and doesn't need a lot of teacher prep or wading through books.  Easy Grammar Systems has some great curriculum for just that. I love the short lessons, and the practice to go along with each lesson is straight to the point.

Easy Grammar: Grade 3 book

I was happy to receive a physical book for this review so I didn't have to print anything out, but these books are also available in e-books. I did have to consider taking the pages out or copying the pages as all the answers are right there in the book on the opposite page. At first, I was a little put off by this, but it really is a thick book and working with only a few sheets at a time is preferable.  I also realized it is kind of like a teacher's book. So, I have opted to just tear the pages out as he works through them. There is also a student workbook available for purchase that doesn't include the answers, but I didn't receive that for this review. If I were purchasing this on my own (which we have in the past, many years ago), I would definitely get both this book (to use as a teacher's copy) and the student workbook so I didn't have to tear the pages out. It seems much easier to have that extra book.

The Grade 3 book includes grammar lessons for prepositions, verbs, nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, interjections, adverbs, types of sentences, pronouns, capitalization, punctuation, and writing letters and sentences. There are assessments and reviews at the end of each section as well. It is a complete workbook including all the answers and the teacher helps.


An example of the layout:

The book starts out with prepositions and suggests memorizing them. Following the list of prepositions, there are several pages of questions and activities to help with learning all about the use of prepositions, with lessons included. At the end of the preposition section there are a few pages of review, and then a test.

My son is not a fan of grammar. He doesn't like writing and will fight me to write more than a sentence or two. I love that this book breaks things down, and has very little overall writing. He doesn't have to do a ton of rewriting of sentences to show the answers as most of the questions have space to just write the correct answer down. The title doesn't lie, it really is Easy Grammar!

I love the quick lessons all throughout this book. We have used them in the past, and I am excited to be reminded how much I love the Easy Grammar Systems books. We haven't been keeping up with grammar because it always feels so time-consuming, but with these books, it doesn't. If you'd like to see what other crew members had to say about this and other levels of Easy Grammar Systems you can click on the banner below.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for:

24. The homeschool groups we are a part of, and the friends we find there.
25. The signs of Autumn all around and in the air.
26. New and old homeschool books being pulled out for the new school year.

This is a continuation of my thankful list. My last thankful Thursday post was on 8/29/19.

The Oregon Garden: Homeschool Day

We had a lovely visit to The Oregon Garden for homeschool day. It turned out to be perfect weather. I seriously considered whether or not I wanted to go when it was forecasting 85 for the high, but the morning turned out to be overcast and almost a bit cool. We left just after lunch when it started to warm up. All the flowers seemed to pop with color.

The children's garden was sweet.

We went with friends, and the kids just had a great time together. All the boys in our group just loved the felting station including my 3.

The forest station.

I am fascinated by cattails. I remember as a child thinking they were just a weird plant. I never knew what they were, or why they looked like they did. I'm now wiser with the many nature studies we've done with them. Knowledge is wonderful. I wish I had realized I could learn more about them when I was younger just by looking it up. For some reason that never occurred to me! I always just wondered.

That wraps up our visit to The Oregon Garden! We got our fill for the year!

Zeezok (A REVIEW)

We had a great time exploring composers with Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades from Zeezok Publishing. This curriculum is packed with a ton of musically inspired learning about some of the world's greatest musicians. While there are only 7 artists covered in this book there are months worth of lessons to cover giving a good scope of each musicians life.

Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades Activity book and guide.

We received all (but one that came as a pdf) of the physical books needed for Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades, including the readers that go along with each of the great artists. The books included:

• Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades Book 2 activity pages and guide
• Frederic Chopin--Early Years
• Frederic Chopin--Later Years
• The Young Brahms
• Stephen Foster and His Little Dog Tray
• The Story of Peter Tchaikovsky
• Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Suite (this is the one we received in a pdf file)
• Edward MacDowell and His Cabin in the Pines
• Adventures of Richard Wagner
• Robert Schumann and Mascot Ziff

These are all essential books to use with this curriculum. There are other things that are used such as a personal journal (created by the student), and online components that are accessed with QR codes as well. All of these things work together to make this a very interesting, well rounded, and fun study about great composers and musicians.

The individual readers for each individual musician. The picture on the computer is the one that we received as a pdf since the physical book wasn't available.

I used this curriculum for my new 6th grader. The first musician to be studied in the book is Frederic Chopin, so that is where we started. Each composer takes 4-5 weeks to study, and Frederic Chopin is a 5-week study so he is the only one we have studied so far for the review period. The reading and activities for Frederic Chopin include one or two chapters each week, and about 10 activities to do each week. Some activities include comprehension questions for each chapter, listening to music, character qualities, cooking, music lessons (learning about notes and music theory), lapbook making (if purchased too), and so much more.

The first composer to study: Frederic Chopin

For the reading, we did a combination of read-aloud and him reading by himself. These books are written a little bit differently than we're used to reading today. A little more classical in nature, and I had to help him through the comprehension questions with some prompting. I really like these books though. They have captivating stories.

He was reading on his own. He doesn't like having his picture taken, so he was hiding.

The student activity book is organized by week. All the questions and activities that are suggested for each week are easy to find and follow. The first activity for each week are the comprehension questions for the reading. There are lines and blanks for the answers to the questions. In fact, the whole book is meant to be written in like a workbook. Not everything has writing that needs to be done though. Some things are just meant to be read like the Character Qualities. There are a lot of cool things packed into this book!

I helped him through the comprehension questions, but he wrote his answers down.

Overall I really like this curriculum. There is a lot packed in it, and many things to explore. I look forward to continuing our composer studies this school year using this curriculum. There are so many different ways it could be used. I feel like we could use bits and pieces as we need them or we could use it all for a well rounded classical music study.

If you'd like to see what other crew members had to say about this curriculum you can click on the link below.

Wordless Wednesday: Art museum

Portland art Museum

9/3/19