Ice Skating

Nature study is not a typical path into Art and Music Appreciation but thanks to Barbara, we have found the connection and motivation we needed to incorporate these into our studies.  Each month she provides guidelines and resources for our Charlotte Mason style music and art appreciation that connects into the nature study for that month.

For our February art study, we did Gilbert Stuart and The Skater.  We are blessed in where we live that we were actually able to go see the original painting as part of our study.  We tried having Froggy narrate what she saw in the painting.  We looked at some of Mr. Stuart's other paintings as well noting that he did mostly portraits.

For music, we did Emile Waldteufel and The Skater's Waltz. We listened to it online here.  We also got an itune version for the ipod so we could listen to it in the car.   I was not able to find a biography or even a chapter in a larger composer book at our library so we read his biography here.  Froggy would not narrate it back to me but I did get her to list five things the music made her think of

The Nutcracker

A Waltz

Swan Lake

Bells

Ice Skating

The highlight was listening to it as warmed up after ice skating at the National Sculpture Garden.  She gained confidence as we went around the rink and enjoyed herself even if she never managed to let go of the railing.