Project 90: Classical Music

This week's project was selected after stumbling across My First Classical Music Book in Foyles, which is a great introduction to some classical music for children.

My First Classical Music Book and other resources

Although the book is recommended for ages 5-7, for those who have not yet been introduced to much classical music I think it is also suitable for those who are older. It comes with a CD, so it's a simple case of popping on the music and reading along with the accompanying notes.

Along with reading the book, we made use of the Ten Pieces resources from the BBC: videos and lesson plans for 30 (originally 10) pieces of classical music. In particular we looked at:

• Mars, the Bringer of War
• Ride of the Valkyries
• A Night on the Bare Mountain
• The Nutcracker - Waltz of the Flowers

Solomon and Monica created pictures for Mars, the Bringer of War and Ride of the Valkyries, although I think Solomon's night scene with a volcano may have captured the mood a bit better than Monica's unicorn and rainbow picture. 

The BBC resources are particularly good because they also provide simple musical scores for various instruments. So the children played the leitmotif from Ride of the Valkyries on the keyboard, accompanied the Waltz of the Flowers with ukuleles as their mother played the flute, and played percussion for A Night on the Bare Mountain.

Classical music is also a great topic for the number of cartoons associated with it, from Fantasia through to A Corny Concerto, and unsurprisingly the cartoons were some of the children's favourite bits of the week.

Of course the only way to finish a week of work on classical music is with The Last Night of the Proms. We watched the proms from 2011 as we had the DVD - and were actually in the audience in those halcyon days before kids!

Next week's project: The Seaside

Project 89: The Romans

This week's project selection was based on another home education workshop at Ferry Meadows: the Romans.

Unfortunately in the great tradition of Ferry Meadows home education workshops something often seems to go wrong (see Project 51: Pond Life! and Project 76: More Maps), and this time it poured and poured with rain. So three very wet and miserable children were dragged around a Roman orienteering trail around the park, complaining the whole way.

Roman Orienteering

As always the project was also filled with the usual selection of books, stickers, worksheets, and videos, and unsurprisingly Solomon was taken with the gladiators.

Book and stickers

Twinkl Worksheets

Finally the weekend was the Peterborough Heritage Festival, (see also Project 39: Saxons) which gave us another opportunity for learning about the Romans. 

Romans at the Peterborough Heritage Festival

The children enjoyed the project, but with a wash-out at the start of the week, it was one we felt we hardly scratched the surface of. It will have to be revisited in the future. 

Next project: Classical Music

Project 88: Painting

As it was Monica's birthday this week, she got to pick the project: Painting.

After watching some videos on different types and styles of painting, we all agreed on some projects they could do:

• Pop Art Self-Portrait
• Impressionist Landscape
• Abstract Expressionist

The pop art portraits were done in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, following an idea from the blog Pink Stripey Socks:

Solomon (Left) and Monica's (Right) Pop Art Self-Portraits

The impressionist landscapes were done in the style of Monet, following a finger-painting idea from The Crafty Classroom:

Solomon (Left) and Monica's (Right) Water Lily Ponds

Finally they expressed themselves with some abstract expressionism:

Solomon (Top) and Monica's (Bottom) Abstract Expressionism

We also tried painting on a different medium with a trip to Crafty Monkey in St. Neots for some pottery painting:

Crafty Monkey

Everyone enjoyed it, and the blog will be updated once the unicorn/tank/pirate have been glazed, fired, and collected. 

***** Update 20/06/19*****
The finished pottery:

Tank/Unicorn/Pirate

Next week's project: The Romans. 

Project 87: Cooking!

We probably don't cook as much with the children as we would like to, so Solomon's suggestion of cooking for this week's project was a nice change.

After a re-cap of some of the work covered in Project 6: Nutrition, most of the week's work focused on the practical side.

Solomon wanted to make a curry:

Curry, sandwiches and some tuna-pasta

And Monica wanted to make some biscuits.

Oat and Raisin Biscuits

They both made carrots cakes and pizza.

Carrot Cakes

Homemade Pizza

They were also introduced to an alternative type of 'cooking' with some fondue (although Monica was deeply suspicious of the offering, and declined):

Do you fondue?

Finally we got them to paint their own food-themed still life:

Solomon (top) and Monica's (bottom) bowls of fruit

While a bowl of fruit isn't strictly cooking, it interested Monica enough to suggest the next week's project.

Next week's project: Painting!