Romantic Fanatics

Our last topic of study was the Romantic Period in art and music.  Who knew teaching the Romantic Period could be so fun to do with 2 little boys?  Tanner kicked off this topic with a really fun opening day at Mormon Rocks.  Hunter, Charity, and I had to miss it because it was the week Charity had been so sick.  Thankfully, Julie volunteered to take Tanner so he wouldn't miss it!

They hiked up Mormon Rocks...

And once they got to the top, they got a real art lesson by Caspar David Friedrich, "the" Romantic painter from that time!

Then, this good looking group headed out to a Train Museum in San Bernardino.  The locomotive was invented during the Romantic Period and truly changed the way people lived at that time...

As it turns out the Romantics were Fanatics about nature!  So I really concentrated on getting outdoors and learning (and being inspired!) by the beauty all around us.  We spent a lot of time outside, which made it fun for everyone, especially Charity who begs to go "side" every chance she gets!

We sketched...

discovered new friends (this one is named John and he sat nice and still while both boys sketched him for quite awhile)...

created a habitat for a big worm we found and studied his behaviors...

And did some observations about pill bugs.

We also learned a lot about landscapes and how to paint beautiful ones!  Here is an art project we completed after learning about Grant Wood, an American landscape artist:

(Ladd likes to make faces in every picture he takes -you should see some of our prom pictures- guess who is following in Daddy's footsteps?)

We concluded this topic with a trip to the Huntington Library with the B Family.  What a wonderful way to blend art, nature, and science all in one beautiful place!

The most beautiful artwork I've ever created (of course I had some help:)...

We took a nice little break from walking to paint a landscape.  All the kids did a great job and it proved to me that they really did learn something from the "Romantic Fanatics"!

Many people say homeschooling is too much work, and I agree, it is a lot of work.  But, I wouldn't trade these memories with my kids for anything!