Art & Music

ART

We use a myriad of different books, websites and videos for art (and craft). Most of them have already been listed here for the younger kids and again here for the bigger kids and adults.

A video not listed on the above pages, that we really enjoy, is the Watercolor Journaling DVD listed on this page. Each of the kids have their own watercolor kit which has greatly added to the accessibility and portability of watercolors for everyone.

When it comes to art appreciation, once again there are quite a few fun books that we like:

At the top of the list is probably the "What Makes A..." series such as What Makes A Monet A Monet?, What Makes A Van Gogh A Van Gogh?, What Makes a Leonardo a Leonardo? and so on.

Things such as Katie Meets The Impressionists and No One Saw are great for introducing art appreciation to younger kids. We also get many good art books from our local library.

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MUSIC

Music is many things to us. We listen to everything from Beethoven to Buffet and Chip plays the guitar, piano, mandolin and a bit of djembe. Currently Collin is taking piano lessons with Chip and Anna guitar lessons and Caleb the drums. We also actually think that Rock Band can be useful for teaching rhythm and a few other music skills. (Crazy, no?)

We really like this series for the piano:

Piano Adventures: Lesson Book Primer Level (Piano Adventures Library)

Piano Adventures: Technique and Artistry Book, Primer Level

Piano Adventures: Performance Book Level 1 (Piano Adventures Library)

Caleb is really enjoying Realistic Rock for Kids while learning the beginnings of drum play. They found a program for the x box that allows him to use the Rock Band drum set as real drums. Very cool and quite the space saver. :)