Happy Birthday Tchaikovsky (Free Unit Study & A Giveaway)
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 5:00AM 
On May 7, we celebrate Tchaikovsky's birthday.
I've found a great way to study composers is to focus on just one each month. Why not study Tchaikovsky in May?
While most famous for composing The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky wrote so many works that children (and adults!) will love and should know about.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is a Russian Romantic composer, born in 1840. He died in 1893, from what is believed to have been Cholera. His music reflects a life that was full of happiness and sorrow, and so very much talent.
When he was just 14 his mother died, and within a month Tchaikovsky was writing his very first composition, a waltz in her memory.
Following are a list of resources for learning about Tchaikovsky in your homeschool, as well as a free Nutcracker Unit Study I created, and a very special giveaway.
If you are at a loss as to how to approach composer study in your homeschool, let me share our very basic plan with you:
- Listen to the composer's music A LOT.
- Find a good children's book about the composer.
- If possible, find a narrated recording/activity about one of the composer's great works.
- Add some notebooking/lapbooking to cement the learning.
You can find out lots more in The Ultimate Guide to Composer Study. This is an exhaustive resource for studying composers in your homeshcool.
Resources for Studying Tchaikovsky
First, I would play Tchaikovsky all the time for my children. Here is a YouTube channel full of Tchaikovsky's greatest works. Play snippets of Tchaikovsky throughout your day.
Quick listening activities include:
- Draw a picture of what you hear (put a big roll of butcher paper on the floor with lots of markers and let your kids have at it... add to the paper throughout the month - a Tchaikovsky Collage!)
- Listen to Tchaikovsky for 2 minutes. Write as many adjectives as you can to describe the music.
- Listen to Tchaikovsky for 2 minutes. Write the names of all the instruments you hear.
- Listen to a different piece of music with dinner each night - discuss as a family.
Studying a composer doesn't have to be daunting or time consuming. Just DO IT, and your children will thank you one day.
Online Free Resources
Hey Kids, Meet Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Biography of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsy from Classics for Kids
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky - short audio shows about the composer and his music
Tchaikovsky Composer Study - a Squidoo lens from Jimmie (very nice - includes notebooking pages!)
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer - from DSO Kids
Free Nutcracker Unit Study
Last year I created a unit study of The Nutcracker ballet. It is designed to teach your student all about the music, story and composer of the ballet.
Download The Nutcracker Unit Study.
*It doesn't have to be Christmas for you to study the ballet, you know (but bookmark the unit study if you just feel weird learning about The Nutcracker in May!).
Other Recommended Resources
Peter Tchaikovsky: Getting To Know the World's Greatest Composers
The Best of Tchaikovsky: Classical Kids
The Story of Swan Lake from Maestro Classics
My children loved The Story of Swan Lake, a beautiful CD with activities from Maestro Classics. (I reviewed this CD early last year.)
The beauty of a Maestro Classics recording is that it requires NO WORK from you, and 100% enjoyment on the part of your children.
Maestro Classics is graciously giving away a copy of Swan Lake to one lucky reader. Follow the instructions in the widget below to enter.
This post is a part of the iHomeschool Network's Birthday Lessons in May. Starting Wednesday, May 1, visit other bloggers in the network for other birthday lessons!
Reader Comments (50)
Thanks! We are set to study Vivaldi in May, but I'll definitely earmark this for June :)
Not yet, but we're planning to start. I think Tchaikovsky would be a great composer to start our studies with.
Thank you for sharing all of the resources and for the giveaway.
We don't regularly study them, but I want to.
Mary, this unit study is wonderful! Thank you!
Love studying composers and listening to their pieces! We study only about 6 a year or so but can't wait to use your printables!
I have loved to listen to Classical music since I was young. My daughter is taking music appreciation in her homeschool lessons. She is also taking piano lessons. We will be studying composers even more next year. We would love to use this collection. Thank you.
We do not currently study composers in our homeschool, but I'd like to start.
I'm just starting homeschooling this summer, but I find music and composers very important. Can't wait to teach my kids about all the arts!
We used your Nutcracker Unit Study at Christmas and LOVED it! We'd love to have the Swan Lake CD!
i plan too! this september will be my first year offiicially homeschooling :)
*kelly
kelly-tillotson@Hotmail.com
Love that rich piano! I'm going to go to the piano right now and see how far I càn get in this piece! I'm now listening to a part that won't be happening today. ;-) thank you for putting this out there!
I would love to study composers with my daughter, though as she is still very young, I would like to start with just doing music..
P.S the other day when going to the library, the book I took for her was the nutcracker...
Not on a regular basis, but we all love it when we do!!
Excited to start teaching love of music to my kids!
Not yet as my children are still really young...but i do love the idea of studying one composer intesively every month.
I am so grateful for all of the guidance and resources you provide. My daughter is only a preschooler, but loves stories and classical music. We listen while we do art, dance around together, or have tea parties. She loves The Nutcracker and we made a "paperbag book" of the story. She hums the melodies and sometimes makes words for them. I am looking forward to using more of your ideas as she gets older...and I really appreciated the post about piano lessons too!Thanks again!
When my 5 children were young, money was very tight and extras very limited. But we loved music. I had my old "record player" from my teen years prior to marriage. Ancient. I visited the "thrift store" and found a large stack of long-play (LPs) records in near mint condition. I bought them all. I think they were either 25 or 50 cents each. A treasure trove for us. Needless to say, we had beautiful music to listen to and all the major composers. As a child I had taken ballet and tap and would show the children dance steps to the music as it played. I played it for naps. I played it while i cleaned. I played it when they were home and when I was home alone. Music I loved and they did, too.
I'm always looking for good resources for my classroom.
Not yet, as my child is an infant, but I play classical music for her.
the classics are some of the best music we have!
I love your emphasis on studying ONE composer at a time. History is not a topic meant to be rushed. A successful history lesson is not one in which maximum information has been covered, but rather one where the topic studied has been covered in a thorough and ENJOYABLE way! Great stuff you've got here, Mary! :-)
We are on and off with our composer studies, but I love Tchaikovsky. One of my favorites.
Great lesson! Having a daughter in ballet, Swan Lake has become a favorite of hers - there is a Barbie version. Lol
We haven't yet, I want to. I'm trying to incorporate more of the things we are trying to do each day and it seems that it is one step forward and two steps back at times. But maybe adding music before one of the other "core subjects" would make the day go easier since all the girls love music. Worth a thought to try. :)
We have not tried Maestro Classics yet. Would love a chance to try it. Thanks!