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Category: Curriculum

Vibrant artist's palette with colorful paint and brushes for creative projects.
Unveiling the Secrets of Vermeer’s Masterpiece

Unveiling the Secrets of Vermeer’s Masterpiece

Exploring the mystery, muse, and meaning behind Vermeer’s iconic Girl with a Pearl Earring painting. Johannes Vermeer was born in 1632 in Delft, Netherlands, during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the son of a silk weaver and art dealer. He lived a middle-class life. Little is known about how Vermeer began painting. He had no formal training and did not apprentice anywhere. Some experts believe he traveled to Italy and France to study, but nothing is recorded. He merely…

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Vibrant artist palette with paint and brush creating colorful artwork.
Edward Hopper: New York Artist

Edward Hopper: New York Artist

Learn about the classy New Yorker from the 1920s to 1960s- The artist of the famous Nighthawks and Lighthouse. The Life & Legacy of Edward Hopper Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist. – Edward Hopper Hopper was a painter and printmaker who painted American life and beautiful “empty spaces” with landscapes of the everyday. Using realism with light, he displayed loneliness, urban life and beautiful landscapes such as his famous lighthouse. Edward Hopper…

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Beautiful Autumn Q-Tip Trees

Beautiful Autumn Q-Tip Trees

Explore a park with trees and talk about the layers of color that the seasons show. If you don’t live in an area that gets beautiful fall colors or no fall season at all, below are some samples of seasonal colors. Or, a variation could be a green tree or palm trees etc. The Process… The first part of this art lesson was exploring a local park during the autumn season. We drove around and walked around looking at the…

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Modern workspace showcasing Apple laptop, tablet, and smartphone on a wooden desk.
Websites We LOVE to Use Everyday

Websites We LOVE to Use Everyday

From the everyday to curriculum and more, there’s always a resource for reviews, extra worksheet practice or just general ideas. Here are some we have accumulated over the decade that work well for us. Some of these we find we use everyday for worksheet practice or general research. Other websites are helpful in a pinch or on those days you need more reference for a subject. Dive in. It’s taken us a while to accumulate good quality websites that give…

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Eccentric Surrealism with Salvador Dali

Eccentric Surrealism with Salvador Dali

Who was Salvador Dali? Art Lesson: First we looked at a few books from the library about Dali, discussing the general information about where he was born, his family and what styles of art he enjoyed. Then we watched the three minute video “Art History for Kids” which gave a great and simple overview of Dali. I liked it because it showed his quirky paintings and his famous silly mustache (which my middle child later tried to mimic with pipe…

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Teach Your Child Typing with Mavis Beacon

Teach Your Child Typing with Mavis Beacon

A great and affordable typing program that gives kids access to the basics of typing and is fun and easygoing. User friendly, full of games and shows progress. Why Typing is Important Using a computer is very valuable in any profession. This is the age of technology and over the generations, many things have changed. The current generation knows much more about touch screens and using an iPhone as a mini-computer than actually using a desktop computer. Typing is valuable…

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Magical Mysterious Art with Matisse

Magical Mysterious Art with Matisse

From painter and sculptor to a magician with paper, Matisse created wild and colorful art that are both magical and modern, creating art designs of perspectives before his time. Who Was Matisse? Matisse was a man of many talents and a hard life. He started as a painter and sculptor. Very little is known about some of his paintings and sculptors. He is mostly known for his paper art motifs and murals/collages that he designed after a divorce and severe…

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A Glorious American Revolution Curriculum

A Glorious American Revolution Curriculum

Gaining independence through revolution in 1775 Over the past few years we have been struggling to find good, clear cut curriculum for American History. Our eldest child loves history and has already utilized a lot of the history curriculum out there. After a lot of trial and error, trying to find books that were age appropriate but also interesting (not those 500 page biographies on one topic!) we finally found a good set. It wasn’t without failure. The first lesson…

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Exploring Amazing All American History

Exploring Amazing All American History

An interactive journal activity using a great American text. As you read, you learn an overview of American history from Vikings to the presidents and everything in between… Free Printable Lessons 1-28 Below: What this American History teaches… This history book with lessons covers a wide range of general history in easy to read chapters. Each chapter is about 10 pages or less, with pictures and large print. Simply using Google images and the key concepts and phrases of each…

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Early Settlers of American History Come to Life

Early Settlers of American History Come to Life

Using Southwest Advantage – an American History Curriculum for the Teaching the Settlers of America This curriculum design was inspired by our family vacation plans (long awaited and desired!) to visit Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia. We studied this unit both before and after visiting Jamestown. History really came to life. If you haven’t seen Virginia yet, I highly recommend it! Below are the lessons we designed using Southwestern Advantage materials about the Early Settlers. Bringing our trip to life, we…

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