the opera....

Yesterday the kids and I got the opportunity to attend the dress rehearsal of the Lyric Opera's production of The Damnation of Faust. Amazing, simply amazing.

I'm not saying that we really understood much of what was going on... but the music and the staging was wonderful. The kids were mesmerized... especially Alex. He knew more of the story and was totally into seeing it come together on stage.

There was quite a bit that was not exactly kid appropriate, but they didn't catch most of it (especially since it was in French and I know, Clara at least, stopped reading the subtitles at some point).

It is such an amazing experience for me as a mom and a homeschooler, when I sit back and realize that the kids and I spent the bus ride home (and part of the evening) discussing opera! Not Spongebob, or Hannah Montana... but opera! (don't get me wrong... we do have those discussions too) Apparently, we all had a lot of questions about what was going on and why things were acted out the way they were. We discussed our theories as to what we thought was happening. We checked the descriptions of the acts in the program to see what we may have missed. And then we fell into the our typical discussion of "what was your favorite part and least favorite part and why".

I know I say this often here... but we are so fortunate to be able to homeschool here in Chicago. What an incredible number of amazing opportunities we have available to us here!

spoiled rotten

You know... as homeschoolers here in Chicago we really run the risk of becoming COMPLETELY spoiled rotten, don't you think?

I mean, seriously, we have so many fabulous opportunities here. We took part in one on Friday.

We went on a "musical journey"...
... with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Russia...
It was part of their Very Special Promenade field trip series.

For $10 a seat, we were in a box in the Symphony Center... the box smack dab in the middle! We were watching and listening to the CSO... AND watching dancers from the Joffrey perform selections from Swan Lake and the Nutcracker! The conductor was wonderful... engaged with the kids and educational. It was truly amazing!! Add to all of this that we were sharing the box with our homeschooling friends.

We're spoiled I tell you... totally spoiled :-)

(I had to make due with program photos today, as no photography was allowed)

another (free!) nutcracker resource...

The Nutcracker Suite for Children

I meant to post this yesterday but forgot all about. Okay... I didn't forget ALL about it, I thought about it and then couldn't remember where I had tucked it away on my hard drive after a fit of downloading a few months ago. Today I found it!

If you would like to download it too... I got it from Kiddie Records, it's week 50 of their 2006 list.

If anyone else out there is doing a Nutcracker study this month, I would love to see/read what you're doing as well!

a theme study for December

Okay... I wasn't going to do it. We were on a good roll with everything we were doing with school. The plan was to just keep on rolling with the norm through December. Well... that was before the tree went up and all of the Christmas stuff came out! We are going to keep going with our normal stuff (scaling back a bit on SOTW though) but we're going to be doing a special theme for the month. Since today is December first and this obsession just came to me on Saturday, it had to be something easy, something that I had resources for already so we could hit the ground running today.

After some brainstorming, I had an idea! See... this summer I got this "brilliant" idea (that was sarcastic) to create a ballet themed year long study for Clara since she LOVES ballet. It's easy finding curriculum ideas for Alex that goes along with what he loves since he loves building and engineering. Clara was tougher so I thought I would try a ballet theme. Well... I began acquiring materials but quickly realized once school started, that I didn't have enough stuff to do what I wanted.... so it was just sitting on a shelf labeled "Clara"... sigh.

BUT.... now, here I was looking for a theme for December... what better use of that stuff on the shelf than a Nutcracker study???

So, here are some of the resources we already had...

DK Read & Listen: Illustrated Book of Ballet Stories

This is a beautiful little book that includes all of the stories on CD. It includes several famous ballets, including the Nutcracker.

Favorite Ballets Coloring Book

Clara loves to color pages in this book as we do our read alouds... but thankfully, she had not gotten to the Nutcracker pages yet.

Nutcracker: The Music Game

We haven't played this yet... but I thought it could be fun.

And, so we don't overdo the ballet thing for Alex, we will add in some composer study...

Tchaikovsky Discovers America

This is another resource I had already purchased.... and now get to put to use!

Now on to other resources...

Again... to not overdo the ballet stuff for Alex, I thought we would expand this a bit and do a little "Christmas Around the World" by reading some about Christmas in Russia. I have these two books to pick up at the library...

Baboushka and the Three Kings


Christmas in Russia

Another motivation for this study is that over Thanksgiving we saw a preview of what looks like a beautiful production of the Nutcracker that is going to be on PBS HD.... Great Performances: Dance In America: San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker. I couldn't find more info on it... but while looking through the Great Performances site, I found this which looks like fun....

Build and Color Your Own Nutcracker Stage Production

Add to all of this that we're going to see the Nut Tapper this week and the dance school that Clara goes to is putting on their own mini production of the Nutcracker... I think we'll be all Nutcrackered out by the end of December! :-)

my new favorite school supply

Seriously... we use it a lot this year.

I've always loved the idea of the Ambleside Online curriculum but I was never sure how to pull it off with both kids. This year I decided that I was just going to give it serious consideration. The first step was deciding that it would be Alex's curriculum, not a shared curriculum between the two of them. The next concern was the amount of reading. There is a lot of reading. I didn't want to burn him out, nor, with it being just his curriculum, could I spend much time reading aloud to him.

Enter Librivox.org. Most of the Ambleside Online books for year one are on Librivox as free audio downloads. I downloaded Our Island Story, Burgess Bird Book for Children, Just So Stories (there are two versions on Librivox, the one I linked to is my favorite reader) and Fifty Famous Stories Retold and then loaded them onto my iPod. Other year one books are there too... Aesop's Fables and the Blue Fairy Book... but I didn't want to overdo the iPod thing and he should do some actual reading :-)

The many of the books are found free online, so I read them on my computer when I have time so we can discuss what Alex has listened to. So far the whole thing is working quite well. It's also very portable. I can throw my iPod into my purse as we head out the door and he can listen to his stories while waiting for Clara while she's in class.

Another free audio download resourse is Kiddie Records. There are a lot of fun stories but I also downloaded a bunch of educational files as well. I haven't listened to them all yet, but here are some that I have for us to listen to...

From the 2006 list:
Peter and the Wolf - for a music appreciation study
Pan the Piper - possible music appreciation study (not sure, haven't listened to it yet)
Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book - a good story to listen to
The Twelve Dancing Princesses - because Clara loves that story
By Rocket to the Moon - astronomy
What are Stars - astronomy
The House at Pooh Corner - because Alex still loves Winnie the Pooh stories (shhh... don't tell)
The Nutcracker Suite for Children - to go with Clara's ballet study I haven't talked about yet

From the 2007 list:
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci - music appreciation, opera study
Walt Disney's Adventures in Music: Melody - music appreciation
Capitol Music Appreciation Singles:
Peer Gynt's Adventures in the Hall of the Mountain King - music appreciation
The Three Cornered Hat - music appreciation
Swan Lake - Clara's ballet study
Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite - Clara's ballet study
Lincoln Records Singles - just realized I missed these, should probably download the following
Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore
Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado
Adventures Beyond the Sky - astronomy

From the Bonus list:
Fun with Instruments - music appreciation
The Barber of Seville - music apprecation - opera
Stories of the Ballets: Tyl and his Merry Pranks - Clara's ballet study
The Little Fiddle - music apprecation

I'm not sure how much we will use these as actual "school" stuff and how much will just be nice audio stories to have on hand to pass the time while waiting for a doctor's appointment or the like.

Between Alex's Ambleside books and the Kiddie Records... my iPod is my surprise favorite school supply so far this year!