As I mentioned in this week's weekly report, we will be adding a study of Shakespeare to our Fine Art Fridays schedule this year. The basic lesson plans are posted at Serendipity, but I've made a few adjustments to better suit our needs. Our schedule will be as follows:

September: Biography of Shakespeare
October: The Globe Theatre
November: Macbeth
December: Twelfth Night
January: The Winter's Tale
February: Romeo and Juliet
March: Hamlet
April: The Tempest
May: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Here are a few helpful general resources:

• Shakespeare for Children from Squidoo
• Bardolatry from Mental Multivitamin
• What's So Great About Shakespeare from Higher Up & Further In
• A Charlotte Mason Minute: Shakespeare
• Resources for Teachers from Folger Shakespeare Library
• Shakespeare Illustrated
• In Search of Shakespeare from PBS
• Shakespeare from the BBC
• Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet
• Shakespeare K-12 Lesson Plans from Mr. Donn
• Quotations from Shakespeare ~ Excellent for copywork!
• Shakespeare 101 from Cay Gibson
• Shakespeare for Kids from Folger Shakespeare Library

As I've been browsing for fun new books, just because, I came across a few titles about Emily Dickinson that captured my immediate attention.

The first of these is entitled A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson by Barbara Dana, a well-researched YA novel written in the voice of Emily Dickinson from the ages of 9 to 24. It has already garnered some excellent reviews and looks delightfully promising! A generous preview of the book can be found here, at HarperTeen.

After stumbling across this post about Neil Gaiman's wonderful "Instructions" being turned into a picture book (available in 2010!), I immediately decided that we should plan an in-depth Neil Gaiman author study at some point in the very near future. He is, after all, one of my favorite authors and the kids enjoyed Coraline so much (both the book and the movie), I suspect they'll love his other work as well. Fortunately, because he's such a prolific writer, there's no dearth of material to explore, and I expect we shall have lots of fun with this!

I am tentatively planning a month-long study (likely in October, so that we can include "Odd and the Frost Giants") in which we'll read one of his novels, "The Graveyard Book", and one of his picture books each week - we'll also be listening to him read his work, which is truly a marvelous experience! Lastly, I'll include a few short stories from M is for Magic. We may wrap up the month with another viewing of Coraline, this time in 3D. :-) Stardust would be another fabulous option, though I think I'll be saving it for a fairy tale unit later in the year.

Already, I'm imagining all of the potential 'rabbit trails' that might be inspired by this study - at the very least, a unit on fairy tales (I believe I'll borrow this idea and use "Instructions" as an introduction to our fairy tale unit). Browsing the author's blog led me to this post about "Grimble" by Sir Clement Freud, republished in Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs and Some Other Things... - this looks like a book the boys would love! Oh, and an Edward Gorey study would also be so. much. fun! Perhaps later in the year we could explore Lewis Carroll (just in time for the release of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which I'm oh-so-anxiously awaiting), and Edward Lear. Hmm...the "literary nonsense" genre, actually. I could have entirely too much fun with this!

Thus far, I haven't come up with any wonderfully creative art projects to tie in to our study (I'm working on it!), though I did enjoy this mural project inspired by "The Graveyard Book." Here are some other resources I've collected:

About the Author

• Official Biography
• Neil Gaiman's Blog
• The Quotable Neil
• A Conversation with Neil Gaiman
• Neil Gaiman Interview

• The Graveyard Book (2009 Newberry Winner)
• Neil Gaiman discussing "The Graveyard Book"
• "The Graveyard Book" Video Tour Readings
• Official website for "The Graveyard Book"
• A Brief (Or Not So Brief) History of "The Graveyard Book"
• "The Graveyard Book" Reading Guide from HarperCollins

• Coraline
• "Coraline" Reading Guide from HarperCollins
• "Coraline" Study Guide from the LA State Library
• Coraline: The Graphic Novel

• Blueberry Girl
• Odd and the Frost Giants (Available 09/22/09)
• Crazy Hair
• The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish
• The Dangerous Alphabet
• The Wolves in the Walls
• The Wolves Are Coming Out of the Walls! (.PDF)
• "The Wolves in the Walls" Study Guide (.PDF)

• M is for Magic (Read the disclaimer here)

• The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection: Includes the following stories - "Crazy Hair," "The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish," "The Wolves in the Walls," and "Cinnamon."
• Coraline DVD

For quite awhile now I've been searching for a music history and appreciation program that includes music prior to the Baroque period (after all, music has existed from the earliest times!). While a few contain cursory information on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, none appear to delve into the amount of detail I require, so I've decided to pull something together myself (we're all quite passionate about music, otherwise I probably wouldn't bother!).

For starters, I purchased the HarperCollins College Outline History of Western Music by Hugh H. Miller and A Student's Guide to Music History by R.J. Stove. I may also read The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West and the Norton classics: Medieval Music and Anthology of Renaissance Music (to myself, of course, if I can find the time!). While I don't plan to get super technical with the kids, I would like them to know - at minimum - the main themes, historical context and identifying styles of each period. Essentials of Music is a useful resource for this as well. If I can find enough material, I'd also like to cover non-Western music (Indian, Persian, Asian and Islamic music, for example) - however, that will require much more research!

After spending some time on Amazon, here is the 'starter' list I came up with, though I'm sure it could use some fine tuning:

• Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks by Ensemble De Organographia
• Music of Ancient Rome by Synaulia
• Hymns from the Vedas and Upanishads, Vedic Chants by Jitendra Abhisheki
• Edda - An Icelandic Saga - Myths From Medieval Iceland / Sequentia by Icelandic Anonymous
• Music of the Crusades by Geoffrey Shaw
• The Fall of Constantinople
• The Glory of Byzantium
• From Byzantium to Andalusia: Medieval Music and Poetry
• Hildegard von Bingen: Symphoniae (Spiritual Songs) by Sequentia
• Early Music Festival / David Munrow, Early Music Consort by Francesco Landini
• Music of the Gothic Era
• Love's Illusion, Music From The Montpellier Codex by Anonymous 4 (13th century)
• The Lily and the Lamb: Chant and Polyphony from Medieval England by Anonymous 4 (13th century)
• An English Ladymass: Medieval Chant and Polyphony by Anonymous 4 (13th and 14th century)
• The Black Madonna Pilgrim Songs from the Monastery of Montserrat (1400-1420) by Ensemble Unicorn
• Codex Faenza: Instrumental Music of the Early 15th Century by Ensemble Unicorn
• A Feast of Songs: Holiday Music from the Middle Ages by Barry and Beth Hall
• Sinners and Saints: The Ultimate Medieval and Renaissance Music Collection by Philip Pickett and the New London Consort
• Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance by David Munrow
• Isabel I: Reina de Castilla (15th century)
• Spanish Music of Travel and Discovery by Waverly Consort (15th century)
• Carnevale! by Ensemble De Organographia (16th century Italian carnival music)
• William Byrd: Second Service and Consort Anthems by Choir of Magdalen College Oxford (16th century)
• Armada: Music from the Courts of England and Spain
• Music of the Middle Ages (OR) Terres Turquoises by Constantinople
• Early Venetian Lute Music