So, I flipped through the resource sections of a few classical education books and came up with some materials that should be helpful over the summer (and in the years to come).
Art
We'll continue with the second book of the Draw Write Now series in the fall, but these looked like great books to explore over the summer:
- Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters (Bright Ideas for Learning) - Over 150 activities that allow children to create their own art projects in the styles of great artists like Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, da Vinci, and more.
- Ed Emberley's Picture Pie (Ed Emberley Drawing Books) - This one will be fun for Oliver and maybe Jane, too! It's not so much a drawing book as a cut and paste book. I cut out basic shapes from colored paper and they use them to create pictures. I'll probably get a few craft paper punches to help out with this one. It's art plus color and shapes review rolled into one.
- Classical Music for Dummies - While the kids doodle and color, we can listen to this book's accompanying CD. Yes, we listen to our Pandora classical music station all the time, but this installment of the "Dummies" series has a sort of guided listening experience. As we listen to the music, I can read aloud from the book's explanation of what exactly we're hearing.
- Spelling Plus: 1000 Words toward Spelling Success - Did you know that 90% of the words in English texts consists of the same 1000 words? Mastering this list at an early age can be a big help later on. We might as well get started now.
- Writing Road to Reading 6th Rev Ed.: The Spalding Method for Teaching Speech, Spelling, Writing, and Reading - This is kind of the entirety of language arts rolled into one!
Sound like a fun summer? We'll have plenty of free play time, too. No worries there. I just want to avoid that back-to-work shock in the fall.