Ambleside Classical

Humoresque or
Our First Color the Classics Lesson

I have been wanting to get to more composer study this term, and began (as usual) by making plans. See below. I am the type of person who gets nothing accomplished without an action plan! Anyway, one of the resources that has been sitting on my shelf unused is Color the Classics. I think I picked it up las year at convention. It is also available at Rainbow Resources. Because of our Non-Western Cultures focus this year, the poor book just sat, unloved and unused, on my shelf all year.

We did our first lesson from Color the Classics, and it was soooooo easy. This is a definite hit, and I wish we had started these earlier. Since Miss M will be going into 6th grade, we are at the tail-end of this curriculum's age appropriateness. Here's how our lesson went.

Me: "It's time for music! You may get bring your colored pencils."

Miss M: "What kind of music?"

Me: "Classical."

Miss M: "Awwwww. (Despite a foundation of Classical, her preferences now lean toward Superchik and Miley Cyrus - gasp!) I can bring my colored pencils? Do I get to color?"

Me: "You get to color, AND you get to use my copy machine and make some copies!"

Miss M: "Yay!" (gets pencils, makes Color the Classics copies)


There are 4 coloring pages on our composer. Each has corresponding page to read aloud while the child colors a picture related to the reading. This did not take more than 10 minutes, or so, including discussion.

Miss M: "Is music time over now? Can I keep coloring?"

Me: "How about if we listen to a song that Dvorak composed while you finish coloring your page?"

Miss M: "Yay!"


To finish our first lesson, I went to my blog post on Dvorak and played the first song, "Slavonic Dances." Miss M requested another song, so we ended by listening to "Humoresque."

Both of us are looking forward to our next Color the Classics lesson!