Art History - Romare Bearden

In my Art History 2024-2025 blog post, I decided January would be Romare Bearden. Here are some resources and my planning notes:

Romare Bearden
1911 - 1988

My Hands Sing the Blues:
Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey
by Jeanne Walker Harvey

Romare Bearden: Collage of Memories
by Jan Greenberg

Me and Uncle Romie:
A Story Inspired by the Life and Art of Romare Bearden
by Claire Hartfield

Li'l Dan, the Drummer Boy:
A Civil War Story
written & illustrated by Romare Bearden

The Block
poems by Langston Hughes, artwork by Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden 2025 Wall Calendar

I also bought the 2011 Wall Calendar

also

Art History Kids - February 2021

The Dove (1964)

Jazz Village (1967)

Tomorrow I May Be Far Away (1967)

City Lights (1970)

The Blues (1975)

Quilting Time (1986)

Week 1 Project, p.16 - A Family Portrait Collage

Week 2 Project, p.26 - A Collage That Features Your Passion

Week 3 Project, p.32 - A Collage That Shows Your Community

Week 4 Project, p.34 - A Collage Series

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Mountain Top (1968)
National Portrait Gallery

The Art of Romare Bearden: A Resource for Teachers (PDF)
National Gallery of Art
print pages 1, 4, 6, 10-13, 20-23, 30
activity: Write a Poem Inspired by Collage

MMA - Georges Braque (Cubism)

Using Art to Create Art: Creative Activities Using Masterpieces
by Wendy Libby
p.11 - art movement (Cubism, Surrealism)
p.12 - "Collage of a Person" activity
p.13 - sample piece of art, Serenade (1969)
p.14 - mini biography
p.15 - "Neighborhood Collage" activity
p.16 - "Collage of Faces" activity

Grid journaling slowstitch style
YouTube video from k3n clothtales

"Printing with threads and yarns" lessons from Jayne Emerson's course
(Gel Printing on and with Textiles)

The Encyclopedia of Artists

volume 1, pp.30-31
New Orleans: Ragging Home (1974)

Bearden's work at nearby museums:

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, STL
Black Venus (1968), on display from 01/09/2025 - 07/21/2025

extra ideas I had that we didn't get to

design additional collage materials using "Printing on threads and yarns" techniques from Jayne Emerson

I recommend joining Lotus Stewart's Art History Kids website (The Studio) and getting access to her past lesson plans. I like her work, and find it's really helpful to have so many ideas that I can use as a jumping off point.

---

week of Jan 6:

Thu

read Li'l Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story by Romare Bearden

begin Grid journaling slowstitch style
as a Handwork project to work on during our Philosophy lessons

for each child:

14 inch square of old sheet as background

draw four squares (3 3/4 inches) with ultra fine point Sharpie

choose fabric scraps, put in handwork basket or sewing box

three needles (2 strands of embroidery floss)

pincushion or slip of paper to hold the needles



these cardboard pcs from the Laurence King BINGO games
have been so useful!

week of Jan 13:

Mon

AM - open and look at artwork in 2025 calendar
Monday Morning (1967)

Saturday Morning Breakfast (1967)

Three Folk Musicians (1967)

The Fortune Teller (1968)

Patchwork Quilt (1970)

Calypso's Sacred Grove (1977)

Falling Star (1979)

Artist with Painting and Model (1981)

At the Well (1983)

Autumn Lamp (1983)

Blues at the Crossroads (1985)

Lady and the Blues (1986)


read My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey
by Jeanne Walker Harvey

work on fabric collage (choose 3 colors of embroidery floss, pull out 2 strands of each color, thread all 3 needles, begin to sew)


PM - look at calendar artwork and discuss collage

read My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey

begin "Collage of a Person" activity
from Using Art to Create Art, p.12
with various scrapbook papers and faces cut from magazines

Tue

Friends collage (for Philosophy discussion)
modified "A Family Portrait Collage" activity, Art History Kids, p.16

Wed

design our own papers for collage using "Printing with threads and yarns" techniques from Jayne Emerson, set them aside to dry
Golden OPEN paints, 5x7 gelatin printing plate, printer paper, thread

week of Jan 20:

Mon

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

AM - open and look at artwork in 2011 calendar

Mother and Child (c. 1972)

Dreams of Exile (The Green Snake) (1973)

Delilah (1974)

Noah, Third Day (1974)

Tropical Flowers (c. 1974)

The Family (1975)

The Return of Ulysses (1976)

Tidings (c. 1977)

Mecklenburg Autumn (1980)

Morning of the Rooster (1980)

Easter Procession (1983)

Le Jazz (Out Chorus II) (c. 1986-1987)


read Romare Bearden: Collage of Memories by Jan Greenberg

continue to work on fabric collage


PM - finish "Collage of a Person" activity

Wed

read excerpts from The Block

"Neighborhood Collage" activity
from Using Art to Create Art, p.15
with our gelatin-plate printed papers

week of Jan 27:

Mon

AM - learn about Cubism

read Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail by Laurence Anholt



see Picasso's work in 1950

Bearden traveled to Paris in 1950 and spent about seven months there. He met both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque!

At the end of his visit Bearden did not want to leave. His friend, the cultural critic, essayist, and novelist Albert Murray, said, “Romie spent the whole day buying paper...all kinds of drawing papers—rice papers, special sizes and surfaces, different colors. His eyes got more and more moist the later it got.” One reason Bearden turned to songwriting in the 1950s was in hopes of raising funds for a return to Paris.

from National Gallery of Art packet, p.30


"Cut-Paper Portrait" activity (Pablo Picasso lesson plan)
from Using Art to Create Art, p.166


PM - "A Collage That Features Your Passion" activity
from Art History Kids, p.26

Tue

"Cubist-Style Leaves" activity (Georges Braque lesson plan)
from Using Art to Create Art, p.18

Wed

revisit Bearden's work and look at the influence of Cubism

"Collage of Faces" activity
from Using Art to Create Art, p.16

week of Feb 3:

Mon

AM - "Write a Poem Inspired by Collage" activity
from National Gallery of Art packet, p.23


PM - embroidery on burlap (mark marking)

Tue

"A Collage Series" activity
from Art History Kids, p.34

continue throughout the week in Choice Time

In addition to the Art History lesson for my regular school group (age 7-13), I'll have a Monday afternoon Art History class for early childhood (age 5-7). I think the "littles" will love Romare Bearden!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Art History Kids 2025 Lineup

I'm currently working on doing all of my lesson planning for January, and I'm really looking forward to studying our new artist, Romare Bearden! I'm largely using the curriculum notes from Lotus Stewart at Art History Kids. Bearden was the featured artist in The Studio for February 2021.

When you join her website (which is a monthly subscription), you also get access to the archives, with lots of lesson plans and artist studies! Click here and scroll down to find a list of over 50 archived artists!

I love her work and was so surprised when teaching Art History became a new favorite subject! Here's MY artist list for 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25, and 2025-26.

Lotus has also reached out to me and we are planning on collaborating on lesson planning in the future. I'm really excited!

Today she came out with HER list of artists for 2025:

The Gyrator and the Weather Tree

Zac and I are celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas with a gift or special activity each day.

In the morning he reads the riddle that I write and put in the middle of the ring, and uses the clues to find a hidden present or note about what we are doing. As the years go by, the riddles have gotten harder and harder!

Yesterday he got to make a lantern, and in the evening we got together with friends and did a Lantern Walk and a Solstice Spiral. It was a beautiful night, and a favorite way to celebrate the cycle of the seasons.

He made the lantern using the instructions I typed up a few years back: What Do You Do with Old Birthday Candles?

It was quick and came out really well. Then when we lit the candle inside, we discovered that the wings glowed in the light!

I got lots of other ideas on that Lantern Walk as well. One friend adhered dried Autumn leaves to the outside of her lantern, over the tissue paper base, and it was beautiful! Another covered her jar in salt, which sparkled!

I just love to see all the little lights bobbing along as people walk through the nighttime forest!

This year we also celebrated the Winter Solstice by visiting the Gyrator sculpture (behind Giant City Lodge) for the first time. I was so excited! This sculpture has a circular cutout through which the sun's rays pass at solar noon (here are the times for Makanda IL). On the Equinoxes and Solstices, the beam of light lands perfectly on a bronze plaque on the ground.

There also a ring at the top of the sculpture, through which you can always see the North Star.

http://www.vectortheartoffabricating.com/1990-gyrator-by-stephen-luecking/

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper

I had been wanting to go for years, ever since my friend Trish told me about it, and this year we finally did! The Gyrator would make a great field trip for the next time I teach about Astronomy.

There are a few more special seasonal traditions I'm looking forward to! On New Year's Eve, we do ceromancy with the Fortune-Telling with Wax - New Year's Activity Kit from A Toy Garden. It's really fun to pour the melted wax in cold water and see the shape it takes as it hardens. Is it a mushroom? Is it a bird? Then you use the little booklet to decode your future.

https://atoygarden.com/products/fortune-telling-with-wax-new-years-activity-kit

On New Year's Day, we set up the Weather Tree (PDF) from All Year Round: A Calendar of Celebrations. We did this for the first time back in 2007! In the past we have always done the little kid version of this, where we colored in a leaf based on the weather (snow, rain, sun, etc).

Fun Fact: If you miss a day, timeanddate.com has historical data!

But now that Zac is in Third Grade, and Measurement is our big Math focus, I think I'd like to do it with Temperature.

Reading a thermometer is the hardest of all the measurement tools, since each one can have a different scale. That's not true with clocks or rulers! So it takes a TON of practice.

It would be super easy to check the temperature every day at noon (we do that anyway, before we go out to recess!) and have the color key represent ranges of numbers instead. That would help the third graders practice reading a thermometer; a different child could be in charge of it each day.

There are seven leaves in the key, so we could have seven temperature colors, and then just leave it white if it's below freezing.

32 or lower - white
33-39 - silver
40-49 - purple
50-59 - blue
60-69 - green
70-79 - yellow
80-89 - orange
90 or higher - red

I could also write the actual temperature in my plan book each day, so that we could then find the average temperature for each month. When I student taught at the Campus School of Smith College, Mrs. Szymaszek kept a list of the daily temps and the children calculated the average every month and graphed it. In Waldorf, finding averages (mean, median, mode, and range) is part of the 6th grade Business Math block... as is making and reading a graph. So that could be a special job for the older children!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Joyce Sidman's Science + Poetry

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I survive by listmaking.

I constantly have a million teaching ideas pinging around in my head, and it's imperative that I put them down on paper; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to get to sleep at night. I also teach nearly every subject and nearly every grade, and so I need to have teaching notes ready for almost anything.

When I was making my Distraction of Prefixes post, and looking up quintain (a jousting term), I saw in the lower corner of my computer screen that quintain is also a poetry term. I immediately thought of Joyce Sidman, who loves to play with many different poetic forms.

In searching through all her poetry books in hopes of finding an example of a quintain, I re-remembered how much amazing Science information she puts in with her Poetry. For example, I found a poem about the Painted Turtle hibernating below the mud... which would have been perfect for when we did that chapter in our Advent book, All Creation Waits. I wish I'd known!

click to enlarge

So...

It is time for a list. Here are the poem titles and the science notes that accompany them.

Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors

perfect for the Timeline of Life (Montessori Second Great Lesson)
scale for timeline on endpapers: 1 cm = 1 million years

First Life (a diamante) - bacteria

The Mollusk That Made You - mollusk

The Lichen We - lichen

untitled - shark

Scarab - beetle

Diatoms - diatoms

Gecko on the Wall - gecko

The Ants - ant

Grass - grass

Tail Tale - squirrel

Crow - crow

Fluff Head - dandelion

Come with Us - coyote

Baby - human

Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night

Welcome to the Night - raccoon

Snail at Moonrise - woodland snail

Love Poem of the Primrose Moth - primrose moth

Dark Emperor - great horned owl

Oak After Dark - tree

Night-Spider's Advice - orb spider

I Am a Baby Porcupette - porcupine

Cricket Speaks - cricket

The Mushrooms Come - mushroom

Ballad of the Wandering Eft - red eft / red-spotted newt

Bat Wraps Up - tree bat

Moon's Lament (an ubi sunt) - moon

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow

In the Almost-Light - dew

Morning Warming - grasshopper

Shhh! They Are Sleeping - rabbit

He - fox

Bubble Song - spittlebug

Sap Song - xylem & phloem

Heavenly - milkweed

Ultraviolet - butterfly

Letter to the Sun

Letter to the Rain

Peel Deal - snake

Don't I Look Delicious? - toad

Always Together - goldfinch

An Apology to My Prey - red-tailed hawk

The Gray Ones - deer

We Are Waiting (a pantoum) - trees

Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems

Listen for Me - spring peeper

Spring Splashdown - wood duck

Diving Beetle's Food-Sharing Rules - predaceous diving beetle

Fly, Dragonfly! - green darner

In the Depths of the Summer Pond - food chain

A Small Green Riddle - duckweed

Aquatic Fashion - caddis fly

Song of the Water Boatman
and Backswimmer's Refrain - water boatman, backswimmer

Travel Time - water bear / tardigrade

The Season's Campaign - cattails

Into the Mud - painted turtle

Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold

Dream of the Tundra Swan - tundra swan

Snake's Lullaby - garter snake

Snowflake Wakes - snowflake

Big Brown Moose - moose

Winter Bees - honeybee

Under Ice (a pantoum) - beaver

Brother Raven, Sister Wolf - raven, wolf

Vole in Winter - vole

What Do the Trees Know? - trees

Chickadees's Song - chickadee

The Whole World Is Melting - springtail

Triolet for Skunk Cabbage - skunk cabbage

That is all I have so far. When the library reopens after Boxing Day, I can go check and see what Francine has. I know I'm missing the following titles:

Hello, Earth! Poems to Our Planet
Just Us Two: Poems About Animal Dads
Eureka! Poems About Inventors

UPDATE:

Just Us Two: Poems About Animal Dads

If I Were an Egg - Emperor Penguin

Egg Business - Giant Water Bug

Song of the Night - Ostrich

Budgie Babies - Australian Budgerigar Parakeet

Mouse Haiku - California Deer Mouse

Froggy-Back - Two-toned Poison-Arrow Frog

Along the Nile - Nile Crocodile

Rules of the Pack - Arctic Wolf

Flying Lesson - Peregrine Falcon

Doing the Rock-Hop Skitter - Klipspringer Antelope

Hangin' - South American Titi Monkey

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

A Distraction of Prefixes

Zac's current bedtime story is Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray (1943 Newbery winner). Yesterday I ran across a word I didn't know: quintain. A jousting term, it clearly comes from the Latin word for five.

So this got me thinking about prefixes, and distracted me from what I'm supposed to be doing (which is wrapping Christmas presents). When we do the Infinity Street lesson in the grade 2 Column Algorithms & Place Value block, I always have to cover lots of number prefixes. It would be nice to have a list of related words that I could refer to, organized and ready to go.

Introducing the Equals Sign ("Is the Same As") and Infinity

We have houses and mailboxes up to septillion, and slips of paper with the names of all of the families up to novemdecillion

Simple
Thousand
Million
Billion
Trillion
Quadrillion
Quintillion
Sextillion
Septillion
Octillion
Nonillion
Decillion
Undecillion
Duodecillion
Tredecillion
Quattuordecillion
Quindecillion
Sexdecillion
Septendecillion
Octodecillion
Novemdecillion

I like to give them the slips of paper after septillion and have them figure out how to put them in order! When it comes to talking through the prefixes, you can refer to the months of the year as a way to help but this can get surprisingly tricky since September is no longer month #7, October is no longer month #8, etc. I remember finding this irritating when I was a child!

They find out the reason for this in grade 3 Clocks & Calendars, so you can plant the seeds of, "I wonder..."

I have actually found Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss to be extremely useful, especially for clarifying that the word is < sext > and not < sex > when representing six (trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet).

Here is what I have so far, and I'd be happy to add your suggestions:

Million

'milli' means a thousand; a million is a thousand thousands

millimeter, milliliter, milligram

millipede

millefiori (in glasswork)

Billion

2

biceps

bicycle

biped

bicorn hat

biscotti

bicolour flag examples

binoculars

bifocals

bicentennial

perpendicular bisector (in geometric drawing)

binary (in computers), non-binary (in people)

bivalve (in mollusks)

biplane
I'll See You in My Dreams

bilingual
English and Arabic - Calabash Cat and His Amazing Journey
English and Cherokee - The Apple Tree
English and Cree - Caribou Song
English and Hawaiian - Kahalaopuna and Tutu's Quilt
English and Hebrew - Hebrew-English TANAKH
English and Inuktitut - Way Back Then
English and Russian - Here Comes the Cat!
English and Spanish - This House Is Made of Mud

Trillion

3

triceps

tricycle

tripod

triangle

trilogy

trivial (here's why)

tricorn hat

trident

trireme

tricolour/triband flag examples

Holy Trinity

Trinidad

Triceratops

Tri-Ominos

Pythagorean triple

Triple Crown (in horse racing)

triumvirate (in Ancient Rome)

triplet
It's So Amazing!, p.55

trilobite
The Drop in My Drink

trio
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Quadrillion

4

quadriceps

quadriplegic

quadrilateral

quadrangle (in architecture)

quadrant (in coordinate graphing)

quadruple

quadruplet
It's So Amazing!, p.55

Quintillion

5

quintessential (wow! thank you, alchemy)

quintuple

quintuplet
It's So Amazing!, p.55

quintain (in jousting)
Adam of the Road

quintain (in poetry)
Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

quintet
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Sextillion

6

sextuple

sextuplet

sextant (in navigation)
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

sextet
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Septillion

7

septuagenarian

septuple

septuplet

September
The Story of Clocks and Calendars

septet
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Octillion

8

octopus

octave

octagon

octagenarian

octuple

octuplet

October
The Story of Clocks and Calendars

octet
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Nonillion

9

nonagon

nonagenarian

nonuple

nonuplet (born May 4, 2021)

nonet
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Decillion

10

decagon

decimal

decimate (yes, really)

December
The Story of Clocks and Calendars

decimeter, deciliter, decigram

Actually, having gone all the way through this list several times, I think I'm changing my mind about these being prefixes. The shared word part in so many of these numbers is < -illion >, which seems to be acting as a suffix.

Which means that bi, tri, quadr, quint, sext, sept, oct, non, and dec are bases and not prefixes here? Could these be compound words? I wonder...

In quintet, sextet, septet, octet, and nonet, < -et > is very clearly a suffix!

If < -et > is a suffix, then < quint > is a base, i.e. quint + et ----> quintet

Etymonline describes < bi- > simply as a "word-forming element." Hmm.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!