I’ll just be honest and tell you that music is pretty important to me. I’m pretty sure I learned to sing before I learned to talk, I’ve danced as long as I can remember, and there is always a song in my head. If I could make life into a musical, I definitely would! When it comes to teaching music, however, I’m a bit lost. I want my kids to grow to love music like I did, and in order to do that I needed a fantastic elementary homeschool music curriculum!
Elementary Homeschool Music Curriculum
I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review, and I was compensated for my time. All opinions shared are 100% my own.
Why Focus on Music Appreciation?
I wanted an elementary homeschool music curriculum that would focus on music appreciation so that my kids would develop a positive relationship with classical music from a young age, and I got that with Zeezok’s Music Appreciation For the Elementary Grades! I remember when I was in school I had one teacher who would punish us with “quiet listening time” to classical music. Even though the music was lovely, framing it as a punishment left a lasting mark for me! I want my boys to recognize different composers and appreciate the beautiful music that they create.
Why Fit Music Curriculum into My Homeschool?
If you’re anything like me, if there’s no curriculum, it can be put off until tomorrow. I thrive with a good checklist, and so does Mr. C. If I didn’t have this elementary homeschool music curriculum I know that studying composers and learning about classical music would be on my endless list of things I want to teach my kids “someday”. Having this curriculum, all of the lessons are laid out for me and I can easily implement them into our busy day!
The curriculum makes it perfectly clear what should be done during each week, and you have the option of doing a little every day, or spending a few days digging deep into music appreciation. I also loved the brightly colored pictures that help little ones understand what they should be doing, even when they don’t have the reading skills to read the list themselves.
What Did We Think?
We loved it! My boys absolutely loved the composer biographies, and listening to the classical music became a favorite part of our day. The biographies are accurate, but they don’t sound like a boring old text book. They are written in story-format, so your kids feel like they know the composers! Mr. C was able to read them somewhat independently, which helped this busy mama out even more. I also love that the activity book includes comprehension questions, since we’re working on that a lot with Mr. C. A-Man liked listening to the stories and looking through the composer biography books. Even Baby M loved looking through the books and humming along to the music!
So What’s in the Elementary Homeschool Music Curriculum?
I’m glad you asked! The Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades curriculum from Zeezok Publishing comes with:BachHandel, Haydn, Mozart Paganini and Schubert
- An interactive and fun full-colored book with activity pages and ideas for each weekly unit
- Seven composer biographies including Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, and Schubert
- Five music discs that include pieces from the different composers as well as thirty-five additional recordings
- Lapbook projects to help kids show what they’ve learned and provide hands-on learning for kinesthetic learners.
The lessons are split up into manageable weekly chunks with grade level suggestions, so you can use this one curriculum for all of your kids together. I also love how it mixes other subjects into music appreciation like history, reading comprehension, geography, and even copywork! I also love that the book includes plenty of activities outside of book-work for my active boys. One example is this German Rye Bread recipe. It’s something fun to do as a family while continuing the learning and making it part of our life, rather than leaving the learning time for school.
How Do You Get It?
Simple! You can purchase the entire Music Appreciation Curriculum Set here. (HINT: Use the coupon code ihomeschool16 to get 10% off only until March 25th!) You can also enter the giveaway to win a full set below!
Even though I don’t homeschool, I’d really like to use this curriculum. The music education in our schools is really lacking (due to funding and schedule constraints) and I think this is such an important subject for our children to be educated in.
You are so right, friend! It makes me so sad that music education is so often under-funded and under-valued. This curriculum is great!
I know that kids in public schools don’t get enough fine arts education anymore because of testing. I think this is great and looks like a really fun curriculum! I love music!
Jamie recently posted…How to Balance Independence and Safety with Toddlers to Get More Done
You are so right. It’s sad how little fine arts education kids are getting! We love music too. :)
Thanks so much for supporting music learning in home and in schools. It’s also great to have your perspective of the Zeezok music appreciation curriculum. We love using project-based learning with kids actively engaging in music, ourselves. In addition to Zeezok, do you think there is interest among homeschools for additional music from around the world, more current composers, or different types of activities that involve children actively engaging in music such as composing or other activities? We are creating resources for people who want to support music learning and creativity on our site http://www.raisingcreativechildren.net and are interested in what people would find most helpful or useful. Great to have your perspective and look forward to any of your future posts related to music or creativity!
Raising Creative Children recently posted…Exploring and Learning Irish Music for St. Patrick’s Day
I’m all for promoting the fine arts!
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I love adding in classical music. :)
This is really great . Our family is full of musicians, my wife is a piano teacher and our two sons each play a different instrument. Needless to say, music education is a high priority for our family. I believe that Music appreciation is important for all children to learn and is a powerful tool that helps children learn new thinking skills.