Composer and Artist Study Week 3

Week 3 continues with the same composer and artist as week 1 & 2: Haydn and Copley.

Week 3 Composer: Franz Josef Haydn -- London Symphony (in 4 parts)
1. Listen to London Symphony, 1st Movement (about 5 minutes)
2. Listen to London Symphony, 2nd Movement (about 7 minutes)
3. Listen to London Symphony, 3rd Movement (about 5 minutes)
4. Listen to London Symphony,4th Movement  (about 5 minutes)

 London, 1st Movement

London, 2nd Movement

London, 3rd Movement

 London, 4th Movement

Week 3 Artist: John Singleton Copley (American, 1738-1815) -- The Red Cross Knight, 1793

Red Cross Knight by John Singleton Copley

1. View The Red Cross Knight at one of these sites: here or here. 

2. Create a Lune poem about this work of art. Use the worksheet found here to help you. Instructions on how to write a Lune poem and a sample poem can be found here. 

3. Read over the information on The Red Cross Knight. Did you know this painting illustrates an episode from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene? Below is the version of the Faerie Queene we read.

Art Lesson for this week:

Select one or more of the following activities to do this week. 

• A Self-Portrait using crayons (sutitable for young students)
• Put Yourself on a Stamp - Self Portrait (older students)
• NGA Faces & Places--Portraits: Make your own portraiture. Use the online program to create a face and background and print out your final product. The portrait printed about 4x5 inches on my computer.

• Faces & Places--Landscapes: Use this online program to create a landscape. We had a lot of fun with this one. It printed out about 4x7 inches on my computer. It also has animation and music.

Notebooking 4th Grade American History, Part 5

This will conclude the section of our notebook devoted to Early Presidents. Since we only covered the first seven presidents we are up to our final president to study, Andrew Jackson. As with the other presidents, we drew his portrait.

 We looked at the painting of Andrew Jackson by Thomas  Sully to help inspire our drawing.

 

We learned the words to the Battle of New Orleans and watched a video of it and our favorite one here,

 This first video is the one probably more people know the lyrics to but the one below is our favorite. 

We made a web about Andrew Jackson and  used some copywork to write about him.
.

After reading and writing about Andrew Jackson we learned how the native Americans were relocated and the Trail of Tears. We drew a picture to remind us of what we read. The section then ends with some famous quotes from the Early Presidents.

The next section we studied was Westward Expansion.

Part 6: Westward Expansion

Notebooking 4th Grade American History, Part 4

In Part 4 American History continues on with the early presidents.

John Adams  and   Abigail Adams 

We compared Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson who were both members of Washington's cabinet.  Then we had to draw another portrait: John Adams.  On the following page we drew the First Lady, Abigail Adams.We used the painting of John Adams by Gilbert Stuart as our inspiration.

We needed a map next  of how we would have designed Washington if we had been the one tasked with it instead of Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Our portrait of Abigail Adams was inspired by the painting by Gilbert Stuart. 

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was our third president. He was important in the Louisiana Purchase so we drew a map of America showing where the Louisiana Purchase was. Our portrait was based on the painting of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale.

Our fourth president, James Madison, is next and we drew another portrait of him and wrote about our reading. We didn't draw his First Lady, Dolley Madison, since we drew her portrait in Part 2. 

James Monroe

John Q. Adams

We continue the section of Early Presidents with James Monroe, fifth president, and John Quincy Adams, sixth president. Our portraits were based on the paintings of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams by Gilbert Stuart.  We wrote a little about the Monroe Doctrine. 

After making their portraits we wrote about what we knew about each man on the next two pages.

We hadn't done a flip book in a while so we used one to compare the accomplishments of the first five presidents.

That is all for now. Part 5 will finish up the Early Presidents. 

Next Section: Early Presidents, continued (part 5)

Notebooking 4th Grade American History, Part 3

This is the third installment of our 4th Grade American History Notebook. All the pages are in a lined composition book which keeps them all in one place. This section covers Early Presidents.

This section had a lot of vocabulary words, 33 words--5 pages worth, so I haven't posted them here.  After the vocabulary words we wrote about Presidential Characteristics and made a web of "Work of the President" 

We began by discussing our first president, George Washington. As we discussed each president, we filled in a table which contained information about each one (shown on the right side below).

We used the painting of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart as our inspiration. 

We had several flipbooks about Washington's History next. 

Washington's Cabinet was the topic of the next two pages. We made a cabinet and wrote down the job each person had on the inside flap. 

See the Part 4 for the continuation of this section.

Next section: Early Presidents: John Adams & Thomas Jefferson

Notebooking 4th Grade American History, Part 2: War of 1812

This is part two of our American History Notebook from grade 4. In this section we studied the War of 1812. The first page is a copy of our Constitution from the previous section, followed by the cover for the War of 1812 section. Just like the previous section, we left this page blank and returned to it when the unit was done to draw items that reminded us of what we learned.

In our next section, vocabulary, we learned words like: time-line, impressment, first lady, frigate, cannon, bayonet, musket, cotton bale, and treaty.

After finishing up the vocabulary section, we made a map of the East Coast to show Washington, D.C., Fort McHenry, Baltimore and New Orleans as we began discussing battles in those areas.

We drew the president, James Madison, in the previous section, so now we learn about the first lady, Dolley Madison, and how she saved documents in 1814. We made a bag (pocket) to store some documents and a picture of George Washington which she carried to safety. She was our third portrait this year.

We talked about what a 'hero' was and wrote about it. Then we got on to the subject of impressment. The scene below shows the British kidnapping Americans.



Weapons of the War of 1812 are depicted next followed by the USS Constitution.

Next was the Battle of Lake Erie followed by the Burning of Washington, D.C. We made notes and drew pictures about what we learned.

Dolley Madison saving the documents is discussed along with a page entitled "The British Eat Dinner" about the attack on the President's house.

Battles continue and we discuss the Battle of Fort McHenry and the writing of the "Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key.

The Battle of New Orleans comes next. The picture of the men hiding in cotton bales is one I really enjoyed. We finish up the section with a page "My Favorite Thing to Study" and a fold out drawing. The favorite was "The Battle of Lake Erie".

The Battle of Lake Erie

That concludes the section on The War of 1812.

Next section:  Early Presidents

Notebooking 4th Grade American History, Part 1

This is the cover of our 4th Grade American History Notebook. This was a yearlong project and it has become a keepsake to remember our year by.  We used a lined composition book, took a photo and made a cover with the photo on it--similar to the Dear America books we had been reading. They did have a template on their site for a while but I can't find a link to it anymore.

Our first section was the Constitution We didn't draw the pictures on the page until we finished the unit and then drew what we felt signified the Constitution. I see a flag, ink and quill, tree, gavel, and a copy of the Constitution on the cover page below.

Next, we kept track of our Vocabulary

Artwork was incorporated throughout the book. This is a drawing of the Pennsylvania State House created from a lesson plan with guided instructions on how to draw it. 

 We drew (traced) a map of the 13 Colonies and made a list of the abbreviations to learn.

 We drew a lot of portraits this year as well. This is our first portrait, James Wilson. Then we turned our attention to the three branches of government and the different plans (Virginia Plan, Connecticut Plan, and New Jersey Plan).

 The Constitution was important so we wrote out the Preamble and made a flipbook which tells when it was written, where, and why. We decided we needed a Constitution as well, so made one up with the rules we would follow for the year. Although not shown here, I took a picture of the delegates holding our Constitution and the flag on September 17---the same day the original Constitution was signed.

 We studied the Framers of the Constitution and made a couple more flipbooks. Then we drew another person, James Madison.

Next section: War of 1812

Web Cams

We spend a lot of time watching web cams of chickens or birds in the background while we do our school work. We have never gotten as involved with the television set, however, as these cats do in the cartoon below. Take a look. 

One of our favorite farmyards to watch is here  or as a pop-out.
If you would rather watch wild birds Critter Window cam is very active with even a squirrel and a raccoon making appearances

Composer and Artist Study Week 2

Week 2 continues with the same composer and artist as week 1.

Week 2 Composer: Franz Josef Haydn -- String Quartet Op 76 No 4 B flat major 'Sunrise'

1. Listen to Haydn String Quartet Op 76 No 4 B flat major 'Sunrise' or click on video below. (22 minutes)
2. Llearn to play an easy song by Haydn. This site has piano sheet music and an MP3 (piano) of 'Surprise' by Haydn.

Week 2 Artist: John Singleton Copley (American, 1738-1815) -- Watson and the Shark 1778  OR The Copley Family, 1776-7

Watson and The Shark

The Copley Family

1. View Watson and the Shark, 1778 OR The Copley Family, 1776-1777.
2. Read the InsideScoop (for kids and grown-ups together) from Fall 2002 on Copley which covers the painting from this week.
3. Information about Watson and the Shark entitled "A Painting of Copley's English Period"
4. For more study of Watson and the Shark check out the National Gallery of Art. 
5. A brief biography of Copley.

Art lesson for this week (select one or more):

1. Use Drawing A Self Portrait From a Photo.(grade 6-12) lesson plan to draw a self portrait with charcoal and possibly do extension activity by adding adornments that represent the identity of the person.
2. Review drawing a portrait by watching the video at this site. Then draw a self portrait.
3. For additional help on drawing parts of the face watch the videos listed below.

• Watch video on how to draw eyes on this site. 
• Watch video on how to draw noses on this site.
• Watch video on how to draw lips on this site.
• Watch video on how to draw ears on this site.

Fun stuff about body proportions taken from the lesson plan "Is There a Formula for People?" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

• A palm is the width of four fingers

• A foot is the width of four palms

• A man's height is 24 palms

• The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height

• The distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is 1/10 of a man's height

• The distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is 1/8 of a man's height

• The distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is 1/5 of a man's height

• The distance from the elbow to the armpit is 1/8 of a man's height

• The length of the hand is 1/10 of a man's height