Nurturing My Pre-Schoolers Enjoying the Fine Arts

For the past couple of weeks, I have been very faithful about "doing school" with my 2-year old (Miney) and 4-year old (Meanie). Before that, it was more hit and miss whether it got done. Sometimes the 8-year old (Eenie) requires so many hours of my time to do her school, that it's time to make dinner for dh (who gets home at the unheard of hour of 4pm and wants to eat right away), and then I have no time for the littler ones.

But, I have noticed some wonderful things about my younger two children, and needed a place to ramble about it, so here it is:

My 4-year old son (Meanie) has become extremely interested in the illustrations in books. I never read a story to him, but that he stops me to ask detailed questions about the illustrations. He wants to know how they are made (I think he's asking about the medium used, so that's how I answer him). He notices the smallest details in illustrations that I never would have noticed, like shading, etc. Meanie is SO visual (might become a problem in his teenage years--we'll see).

But, I am going to look for ways to nurture this interest of his. He has always enjoyed painting with finger paints, water colors, etc. My dh works at Hobby Lobby corporate office and we watch for the sale ads, so we could easily get him some high-quality art supplies for a decent price. I may start doing this for Meanie, a little at a time. I might also begin looking for some type of formal instruction for him (because I do not have an artistic bone in my body, unfortunately). There are a number of talented homeschoolers who teach art classes and will even come to our home, as long as I can pay the fee. I might check into this. There are also museums that offer art classes for children on Saturdays and give them an opportunity to experiment with different mediums, but I'm not sure if they do classes as young as 4, or not.

My 2-year old daughter (Miney) is very into music. She is still somewhat unintelligible in her speech (it's probably that pacifier), but she has been trying to sing all of the songs along with me. This is good because it motivates her to take her pacifier out of her mouth and talk. But the other thing I have noticed is that Miney's pitch is good (definitely doesn't get this from Daddy), so I am going to start working with her each day on some simple kids songs and Bible songs. We have so many kids tapes, and I need to get these out and play them for her more often. Also, Eenie has been working on a sign language DVD that has four songs on it, and I have noticed Miney trying to do the sign language and sing when we have the DVD on. How exciting!

My younger two children have always enjoyed music, ever since they were babies. My oldest child could care less about it. I am probably going to begin presenting the concept of Solfage to the kids, so that they can have more of a musical foundation. Aunt Angela is a music teacher at a classical Christian school in Texas, so maybe we need to ask her for some ideas, as well. We play a lot of classical music around here, especially for Eenie's composer studies. Maybe I need to start including Meanie and Miney in the composer studies we are doing (at least the music portion, even if they don't listen to the biographical information).

Just a few things to ponder. . . .