Jan. 14, 2008 - Renaissance and Reformation
We are continuing our chronological history studies into the Renaissance and Reformation period. I also have felt led to really focus on missionaries and those who truly work for the Lord. I want the stories that we read to be Christ honoring and ones that would set good examples of historical figures for my children to be familiar with.
We are currently reading Morning Star of the Reformation by Andy Thomson. This is a fiction book set in the 1300's based on the life of John Wycliffe. This book is a great "bridge" between Middle Ages studies and Renaissance and Reformation. Even though it is set in what would be considered the Middle Ages time period, it really focuses on the forward thinking of John Wycliffe and leads us up to the Reformation period. This is one not to be missed!
We will also tackle 2 books on William Tyndale. The Bible Smuggler by Louise A. Vernon and The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day by Scott O'Dell. Both set in the sixteenth century and both based on the life of Tyndale.
What is amazing to me is how the lives of these 2 men correlate so well together. Both men believing that all folks, regardless of social status or education, should be able to read the Holy Scriptures for themselves. It is such a blessing to think how these 2 men were such great fighters for God's Word. These are real men who trusted God with their very lives, as both of them were consider rebels. Our house if full of Bibles, several translations, different styles, sizes, etc. And to think that these men gave all their life to put that right into my life. It makes you see how much we take for granted the owning and reading of God's Holy Word. I love the type of book that makes you think!
Because this time period is also so full of wonderful artists and composers, we are also studying the lives of these men. To start with, I have a book called The Usborne Story of Music. It is set up in my favorite Usborne fashion with small snippets of historical info on each page. For our study, we will be focusing on pages 10-11, Renaissance Music, pages 12-13, Early Opera and Ballet, and pages 14-15, Baroque Music. We will also be using my copy of The Encyclopedia of Music by Max Wade-Matthews and Wendy Thompson. It is a large hardback book that lists lots of information on composers in chronological order. It also breaks down and discusses the several types of instruments. It is a fantastic resource. To continue with our composer study, I also have a book called The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson. I will also use http://www.classicsforkids.com as a resource for the kids to listen to the music written by the composers. This program actually is offered by the classical station that is near us, and the programs are on the radio around here. However, you can get all the information, as well as the shows online. You can even sign-up for their newsletter, which includes a composer study, complete with activity pages and most of the time a music sample.
We study the composers on Tuesday and Friday. Since our study is 6 weeks long, I have chosen 6 composers that I felt were ones I would like my kids to be familiar with. I am using the Composer pages from http://notebookingpages.com for our notebooks and we are creating our own index cards to go with our timeline chests. Each index card lists the name, years lived, city & country lived, music info. I also reference the pages from our resources, so we can easily find those pages later, if we need to.
The composers we are studying are: Schutz, Purcell, Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, Bach. These will be studied in chronological order, using all the above resources, when available. We will study each of them over the 2-day period, which will allow us enough time to cover all the information provided in our books and resources.
For the artists, we are studying many more. I am using the Artists lapbook from http://homeschoolinthewoods.com We are not completing the entire lapbook during this unit, though. The lapbook covers many artists over many years. We will be completing this lapbook over the course of our chronological history studies, which will take us quite some time.
We do not have many personal resources for artists, but I have been able to find a lot of info on http://artcyclopedia.com and http://wikipedia.com. We also are creating index cards for the artists. Each index card lists the name of the artist, years lived, city & country, artist medium and popular works. I also joined the Ambleside Online Art Prints Yahoo group, where we can see 6-7 prints of each artist.
The artists we are studying are: Donatello, Fra Angelico, Machiavelli, Boticelli, da Vinci, Holbein, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, El Greco, Rubens, de Parjea, and Rembrandt.
We will more than likely add some library books on the artists and composers if they are available. My basic goal is to have my kids become familiar with the names and pieces of these artists and composers. This will lay a foundation for them. So in years to come, when they hear or see these folks again, or their pieces, they will have a baseline knowledge of who they are.
If you have any wonderful resources to share about the Renaissance and Reformation period, please do not hesitate to share it.
