Cultivating a Love of Beauty in Your Homeschool
“It is well we should recognise that the business of education is with us all our lives, that we must always go on increasing our knowledge…
As for that aesthetic ‘appetency’ (to use Coleridge’s word) upon which so many of the gentle pleasures of life depend, it is open to many disasters: it dies of inanition when beauty is not duly presented to it, beauty in words, in pictures and music, in tree and flower and sky.
The function of the sense of beauty is to open a paradise of pleasure for us; but what if we grow up admiring the wrong things, or, what is morally worse, arrogant in the belief that it is only we and our kind who are able to appreciate and distinguish beauty?It is no small part of education to have seen much beauty, to recognize it when we see it, and to keep ourselves humble in its presence.” ~ Charlotte Mason (full text at Ambleside Online, emphasis added)
Beauty in Homeschooling
Beauty is not something we tend to think of as a subject in school. But cultivating a love of beauty, of truly wonderful things, is a gift we can help our children develop. There is a sacredness found amongst lovely things, be it music, art, poetry, or even the intricacies of the language of mathematics. It not only provides us with something to admire, it inspires our own creative natures.
We were created by a Creator who delights in beauty. He created us to worship, and part of that worship is using our own gifts to create. Appreciating the beauty of both God's Creation and the creations of His children is time well spent.
Here are a few of our favorite methods and resources for cultivating a love of beautiful things in our homeschool.
Cultivate a Love of Art
Art is a huge part of our homeschool. We love looking at art of all varieties and we love creating art. Over the years we’ve used many different courses from The Masterpiece Society and Awaken to Delight to hone the creative skills of all of our artistic abilities.
We also all play instruments to some degree because music is an art form that allows incredible expression without having to delve into words. Poetry is also something we enjoy alongside beautifully composed prose.
Art encompasses all the riches and today we’re going to share some of our favorite resources for all of them!
For art study and art creation, these are the resources we use most:
Many art lessons we’ve done over the years can be found in our shop here if you want a lesson to coordinate with a particular time period or literature study. These were the art lessons that were part of the morning time curriculum we had.
The Masterpiece Society has several great courses we’ve used over the years and our favorite Art School 101 classes are included in our Awaken to Delight Membership.
Craftsy - I have used Craftsy to teach the boys art, cake decorating, crocheting, and more. Art has so many great facets!
We use Master Chef Junior cookbooks for great recipes for culinary arts.
Your local book store's bargain book area. We've picked up so many wonderful art books this way, and for a fraction of the cost.
Cultivate a Love of Music
Music often expresses what words cannot. Emotions and audio pictures are painted in nuances and melodies. Both boys have taken piano, and I play as well. We also have a dulcimer, a child sized and 3/4 sized guitar, table harp, tin whistles, two lovely harmonicas, and a celtic harp. Having instruments in your home, just the basic rhythm shakers and a harmonica or tin whistle, will allow your children to explore making their own music.
Studying music is a wonderful way to ease into your school day. We use biographies, hymns, CDs, and our favorite music appreciation resource, The Story of Great Music, is so incredibly easy to use for middle and upper grades.
Music is an integral part of our home and we use too many resources to list, so here are a very few of our top rated musical must-haves:
The Magic Flute (The Met Opera) DVD
Peter and the Wolf Maestro Classics CD- This version teaches about the orchestra, music, story telling with sounds, and more.
Then Sings My Soul books I and II - Collections of hymns and the story behind them.
A CD player and a good, varied CD collection - our boys have listened to many genres because we have kept physical copies of different kinds of music available to them (without the internet or streaming). Everything from Muddy Waters to King’s College to Bach to Johnny Cash - they know and love almost all of it!
Cultivate a Love of Poetry
Poetry is something many people think of with a bit of dread. Recalling some of the dry or dull pieces you may have suffered through in school, you might be hesitant to put your own child through that. I assure you, it does not have to be so!
Memorization and recitation are both wonderful for developing your child's brain, vocabulary, memory, and appreciation for different styles of writing. Studying poetry is also a good way to sneak in biographies of writers.
We have a few books that I truly believe every homeschool should have.
When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne
A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Book of Comfort by Elizabeth Goudge
The Oxford Book of Poetry
A pocket sized edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein
Cultivate a Love of Nature
Nature is such a wild and wonderful experience. We are journaling a meteor shower into our journal this week. I cannot explain the awe and amazement of watching long-since-past comet bits pepper the night sky with streaks of blazing light alongside my children.
Seeing nature, touching, smelling, and tasting (when safe) are fun ways to explore and show our children the beauty that is all around us. Even in cities, there are parks, museums, and birds who find a way to thrive. There is always something to explore!
For nature study, our most loved resources are:
The Handbook of Nature Study versions with colored pictures from Living Books Press
The Country Diary of and Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
Watercolor pencils for nature journaling entries
A good, small watercolor or mixed media journal
There are so many ways to cultivate a love of beauty in your homeschool! Please share your favorite resources in the comments!