Music Appreciation in the Homeschool with Zeezok Publishing
Thursday, March 6, 2014 at 5:00AM
Music appreciation is kind of "our thing". Being a degreed musician and former elementary music teacher leads me to choose music materials for our homeschool quite carefully. I look for quality music, the opportunity to learn about composers, and a "unit study" approach to music appreciation.
I know, however, that a music appreciation course needs to be easy for the non musical parent.
Enter Zeezok Publishing and their new music appreciation curriculum.
I have long been a fan of Opal Wheeler's composer biographies. When I learned that Zeezok Publishing had put together a Music Appreciation Curriculum for children based on these books I was thrilled.
(Do you remember when I did the series about Music Appreciation? Of course I included recommendations for these biographies!)
Today I get to share my impressions of this curriculum, as well as offer one lucky reader a chance to win the course.
About Zeezok Music Appreciation Book 1
This is a comprehensive music appreciation curriculum designed for elementary age children (with possible extensions into the middle grades).
The "spine" of your child's learning will be the beautifully written composer biographies by Opal Wheeler. These are well written, living books that bring your child into the life and times of each composer.
Biographies included in Book 1:
- Bach
- Handel
- Haydn
- Mozart
- Beethoven
- Paganini
- Schubert
Also included is one large activity book, containing 4 weeks of lesson ideas and activites for each composer. This is 28 total weeks of scripted music appreciation lessons - enough for one year (or more depending upon your rate of study).
The course also comes with music discs and a lapbook elements CD Rom.
This review focuses on the Paganini biography, the lapbook my son created, as well as the activies from the activity book.
All I can say is, "WOW!"
Learning About Paganini's Life and Music
Typically we would sit and read a chapter in the Paganini biography at lunch time. While I was reading I used the comprehension questions in the student activity book as a guide. (There was space provided for my son to write out the answers - some days I chose to have him do this and other days I simply asked him to narrate the answers to me.)
The activity book also included interesting tidbits, mapping exercises, recipes, character traits, and more.
We spent on average about an hour each time we sat for our music appreciation lessons. I loved that I could have Grant busy cutting out lapbook pieces or doing an activity from the book while I was reading.
While I am not normally a "workbook" kind of homeschool mom, this workbook was very well done and engaging. I found myself picking and choosing what we did, and actually leaving out very little. All of the activities appealed to my son.
*I would recommend the course for elementary and middle grade students. There are suggested activities for middle grades students, so there is no need to figure out how to adapt the materials yourself. As a mom of a third and seventh grader I liked this.
Any music selections referenced in the biography were available on the CD, and there was even two piece of music printed in the biography.
How marvelous it is to have a curriculum that doesn't water anything down, and exposes our children to beautiful music. This is refreshing!
If you decide to pursue using this curriculum, be sure you have the time to dedicate to it - while everything is scripted and laid out for you, the actual reading of the books and completion of the activities takes TIME... but it might help to consider that your children are learning about other subjects as well as music.
The Paganini Lapbook
All lapbook elements are found on the Music Appreciation lapbook CD Rom, which was easily loaded onto my Mac. I printed the pages as needed and stored the lapbooking elements in a resealable plastic bag.
Children just love a finished product, and these lapbooks are so well done.
I will say it again: Thank you Zeezok Publishing!
Grant made a video tour of his Paganini lapbook.
Take note of the unit study approach used here - history, language, geography, music, and more... all incorporated into this study of Paganini. The video speaks for itself.
Extending with Paganini
As luck would have it, we won tickets to see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
The featured work was by Paganini, played on a $2 million Stradivarius violin!
It was an evening where everything came together... all four of us had a great time, and I sat with tears in my eyes as my family was glued to the performance of the "feindishly difficult Paganini" (Those were the words of our local public radio host after the concert.).
My children knew the history behind the music, and the fiery personality that accompanied the equally fiery music. The Music Appreciation course translated into real life - isn't this what we want for our children?
5 Favorite Things About Zeezok Music Appreciation Curriculum
- Based on living books - the Opal Wheeler biographies are so well done and I appreciate any curriculum with living books as its spine.
- Easy to follow lessons for the teacher and student/adaptable for multiple ages
- Incorporates other curricular areas - not just music
- Good variety of hands-on activities and written work
- Character traits are emphasized and BIBLE VERSES are included!
Helpful Information and Discount
Connect with Zeezok Publishing on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.
There is a 10% discount on all orders until March 21 with the coupon code ihomeschool.
Zeezok Music Appreciation Giveaway
One lucky reader will win one music appreciation course ($169.99 value!).
Please note the following about the giveaway:
- If a customer purchases the set during the giveaway, and subsequently wins it, Zeezok will issue a refund of the purchase price.
- Prize shipped only to US mailing addresses.
- Giveaway open until March 20, 2014 at 11:59 p.m.
- Winner will be chosen and notified Friday, March 21.
Follow the Rafflecopter Widget below to enter! Good luck!
Reader Comments (62)
This looks like a great curriculum! Thanks so much for sharing! :-) my kids would love this!
This music curriculum looks great! My kids enjoy the lapbook/unit study approach.
looks great!
Amazing! I wish I could win that! Music, art and history is very important in our lives!
This look wonderful!~ My daughter and I love music. This would be so great!~
I don't have a preference on who to study first. My biggest challenge is finding an organized way to work music into our normal homeschool routine.
Wow! I would love to incorporate this into our school day! My kids would love this?
I've been looking for something a little more involved and organized than what we've been using - this looks fabulous! Thanks!
I saw this curriculum on another site and I wondered about it for next year! Thank you for the info. and for the chance to win it!
I go in phases with out music appreciation studies. We tend to do a lot of hymn studies but only learn about 1 or 2 composers in a year. I would like to have stories to go along with our studies and this looks like a really fun way to do it!
We're going to study 20th century composers next year, so any if those composers. It's easier to have it all laid out rather than having to come up with all the information myself.
I would love to win!
Looks like what I've been wanting for a while to use with my 4 kids.
This set looks awesome! We could so use this in our daily homeschool.
My five year would love this.
Thank you!
My daughter takes piano lessons and loves to compete in the piano festivals. We are getting too the level where she will begin having the composers and music history on her theory tests. I am totally nervous about that part. I don't know where to start and this would be a great option! Thanks for the chance to win!
I think we would most like to study Handel. We lived in London for 3 years and had the opportunity to see his original handwritten musical score for "Messiah" at the British Library many times. I could use a bit of a push with music appreciation as we have always been a Language/Literature/History oriented family. My 13 yr. old B/G twins just began violin lessons along with learning to read music and are loving it. This is an awesome opportunity for any homeschool family. Thank you for the giveaway!
Wow! That looks like a really great program. I would like to incorporate music appreciation as we work through history, taking the composers in order with our timeline so I don't really have a particular composer that I am focusing on at the moment. I definitely need something scripted with good literature suggestions and this program looks like it has all of that and more! Thanks for the review.
This sounds like a great program. I keep wanting to incorporate music and lapbooking and this does both. I also like how character traits are included. It looks like even I can teach this!
Looks wonderful, would love to win it!
This would be a great addition to our homeschool. Thanks!
This looks great - thanks for telling us about it!
I need all the help I can get. Putting things together on my own and teaching is tough. I appreciate having a quality, prepared curriculum! Any composer would be welcomed in our home study.
This curriculum looks amazing!!!
I would love this because I DON'T have a musical background and I am pretty much music illiterate! This would be such a blessing!