Elementary Music Appreciation

Thanks for sharing!

Why you should include Music Appreciation in your homeschool

Music is a delight. It speaks a language all it’s own that can evoke emotions a way no other medium can. Music allows us to express emotions through instruments that can seem almost magical. Sharing in the joys of music with your child is an incredible way to spend time together. Cultivating a love of beautiful and wonderful things is something that can be encouraged from a very tender age. Music appreciation is an excellent addition to homeschool from the very first years.

Disclosure: I received Zeezok Music Appreciation Book 1 Collection for free and was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

What is covered in the Zeezok Music Appreciation Curriculum:

Zeezok has put together an awesome 1-2 year study, depending on how long you take to absorb each classical composer. We’ve spent 6 weeks on Beethoven and Mr. T is still very much into the study so we will be here a while longer. The purpose of the Music Appreciation Collection is to help guide your student through learning to listen with intention, to hear nuances, and to learn that the musicians behind the music are as much a part of the music as the notes themselves. This series is perfect for musical and non-musical homeschool parents! It makes everything, even music theory, very accessible and easy to understand.

Contents of the collection:

Music Appreciation Activity Book – This is rated for K-6th standards. You should have one for each student.
Music Appreciation Music Discs – The arrangements are so well done and a joy to listen to during the readings.
Great Musician Series Readers: Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, and Schubert.
Music Appreciation Lap Book CD – We’ve enjoyed the lap book addition to this study very much!

The Music Appreciation Activity book gives you a study outline for a four week study at the beginning of each composer’s section. There are comprehension activities, character qualities, reinforcement of details from the biography readings, geography, writing, and directions for the lap book activities. There is also an answer key at the end of each section. We’ve included the timeline tidbits at the end of each section into our My Book of Centuries history notebook as well.

The Music Appreciation CDs have beautiful tracks on them. As you read through the Great Musicians Series biographies, there are pieces woven throughout the story that help to breathe life into the stories in a wondrous way, with continued listening recommendations at the end. The Great Musicians Series is also available as an MP3 download. The CDs are a great way to do some car learning. Identifying pieces, dynamics, composers, and individual instruments make car rides much more entertaining.

The Lapbooks are wonderful. The activities are simple enough for a K/1st grader, but are thorough enough for your 5/6th graders. There are options on several for drawing or writing so every student is given the opportunity to excel at their own level. Our goal is to attach all the completed lap books at the end of our studies to have one epic composer lap book for Mr. T to use for reviewing.

There have been many studies showing how musical training affects brain development in young children. Learning an instrument, like piano, helps with attention, motor skills, and developing a habit of practice and perseverance. It helps improve memory skills, IQ, and math. It can be used for therapeutic means for ADHD, auditory processing, and more. It cultivates an appreciation for the sounds around us and brings comfort and loveliness to our lives. Music Appreciation curriculum is a wonderful investment for the lives of your students, not just your homeschool.

If including fine arts is on your homeschool radar, then you should make Zeezok’s Music Appreciation Collection part of your studies!

Drawing Out Composer Studies for Musically Minded Children

It’s easy and fun to find even more supplements to compliment your Zeezok Music Appreciation curriculum if your child wants to know more about a certain composer or instrument. For Beethoven, who Mr. T is completely infatuated with, we have added Beethoven Lives Upstairs (an excellent movie about a young boy whose mother takes in Mr. Beethoven as a boarder for a few months), Beethoven’s Wig, and Welcome to the Symphony which introduces students to the sounds of the orchestra through Beethoven’s 5th symphony. We will be studying Mozart next and adding in an in-depth study of The Magic Flute opera on DVD and The Magic Flute book. My Name is Handel is a gorgeous audio from Maestro Classics for when we get to Handel and The Story of the Orchestra is a wonderful resource to any home that loves music. These supplements really draw out our lessons in our Music Appreciation curriculum and allow Mr. T to dive as deep as he wants into each composer. The fire he has for music has been flamed exponentially by our Zeezok lessons and I couldn’t be happier!