Middle school is tough.
Art and music in middle school is really tough.
I like to teach art and music along with history from year 1 and we cycle through every 4 years, digging deeper each cycle.
This unit was our 3rd time through for my eldest.
How I teach art and music:
- Listening
- Fundamentals, Theory, Vocabulary
- History
- Practicing and/or Performing
We listened to Haydn’s Farewell Symphony.
It was part of our classical history studies with Tapestry of Grace Year 2 and the book was on the girls’ list of reading, but we read it together as a family and was delighted and then I found the whole symphony on YouTube. It is magnificent.
Liz finally broke out her acrylics and painted this as she listened:

She loves abstract art.
I love her representation of the musicians’ candles. She explained which parts of her painting meant which emotion from the symphony.
Brilliant.
We often create and complete notebooking pages with music and art.
Check out these great Haydn notebooking pages.
We love Productive Homeschooling for all our main notebooking needs.

Your daughter did a great job on the artwork.
Thank you! I’ll be sure to tell her!
You daughter looks so proud! Such a great activity for a child to express what they are hearing in the music. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks! She was so happy that she did it when I was teaching her siblings. She came down to show us.