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Teach Music

Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat

February 18, 2024 | 16 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have some fun homeschool music curriculum today. Also, look at Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study.

Teaching the basics of how to play a big wooden box like the piano may seem.

Perhaps if you compared it to building an appreciation for the love of classical music in your children. 

Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat

Too, Tiny has spent more years with a piano teacher receiving instruction than I have nurturing his appreciation for classical music.

So, I was ecstatic about receiving Zeezok Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades Book 1.

Music Appreciation in a Box

First, this is a comprehensive music curriculum.

But take a peek at what we got in our Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades Book 1 Collection.

  • One Student Activity Book, 353 pages.
  • Music Discs. Psst. . . It’s 2+ hours of beautiful professionally recorded music.
  • Lapbook Disc – 7 lapbooks.  One on each composer.
  • 7 composer biographies.  One biography on each composer studied which are Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini and Schubert.
Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat which includes lapbooks, hands-on ideas and background information.

Right away I want to tell you that though I have had several months reviewing this curriculum.

And we have just barely touched the scope of it.  We didn’t want to miss any tidbit shared throughout the student activity book.  So we have taken our time going through it.

Poring over every fact about each composer, and the historical background of them, we have spent many days cuddled in the living room.

We have read and did hands-on activities for Bach, Handel and some on Haydn.

Homeschool Music Appreciation. Music curriculum which is hands-on and for multiple ages.

It is an in-depth study on music styles. In addition, it includes learning how music is created.

Also, it so much more. For example, it has geography, history, hands-on activities, quizzes, an instrument study and character trait studies.

Zeezok Publishing Review Activity Book

I know what that is – a unit study! 

Because we wanted to add this to our French Revolution unit study that we started after using the curriculum, we moved ahead to focus on the study of Beethoven because his life overlapped the French Revolution.

For instance look at the part of the student activity book that focuses on Beethoven.

You see how each section in the student activity book is designed.

Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat

All excellent unit studies start with a plan.

And the plan is built right into the student activity book.  Above you can see the weekly lesson outline showing the 4 week plan. 

To study each composer there is allotted 4 weeks. I love the Weekly Lesson Outline. 

The lesson planning direction is superior.

Music Appreciation in a Box

So, I would rather see the outline and determine the pace for my children, than not have a beginning point.  You have a beginning point and activities lined out for each of the 7 composers.

Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat

The weekly lesson plan of activities is built into the student activity book.

This allowed me to give Tiny more control over what he did each day. 

Now that he is getting older, I want him to take more responsibility for some of his day. 

So I was able to use this feature as a way to measure his maturity for more accountability and for him to start his day on his own without my prompting.

Also though the student activity book is an all in one resource.  It has everything you need in it to complete the series after you read each chapter in the biography reader each week. 

If you are short on shelf space, you will like the fact that it is the teacher’s guide, student activity book, has tidbits of interest, assigns the music to listen to, gives timelines, has instructions for lessons on hands-on projects, has a quiz and the answers at the end of each unit. 

All of these things made it easy for Tiny to pick up and start on his own.

Homeschool Music Curriculum 13

Moving on to the actual contents of each week’s lesson, they are varied.   We especially took notice of the activities and background information for history and geography. 

For example, we enjoyed learning that during the 1800’s songs were written in response to social events. 

Homeschool Music Curriculum

This is exactly the tie in I was looking for in this curriculum to help Tiny understand how music evokes passion and emotions on sensitive social issues.

Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat

Regarding geography, the introduction to the Rhine River was a chance to pull out our atlases to understand the world of Beethoven as he knew it from the time he was a boy to a famous composer.

Homeschool MusicCurriculum 16

Also, including lessons on the character qualities of Beethoven and tying that into a language arts lesson made studying this part more meaningful for Tiny.

Homeschool Music Curriculum 18

He loved doing the attribute acronym for his name as he was inspired by the motivating force of adjectives.

I know I have been sharing about the student activity book because comprehensive hardly seems accurate enough to describe it, but the other important element to this curriculum that equally stirred us beyond the music and activity book were the composer biographies.

I have seen these Great Musician Series Readers on some of the online homeschool book stores before and knew they were classical readers, but wasn’t quite sure how to use them in my day because I don’t have a musical background. 

The classical readers remind me of a living history book too because even though they are biographies they do a beautiful job of weaving the background information as you read about the lives of each musician. 

The readers have black and white simple, but treasured pictures along with the famous music of each composer in them. 

Tiny spent hours at the piano trying to mimic Beethoven after reading about him and some of the other composers each week.

Homeschool Composers Biography

As if all of this wasn’t enough to send us over the top about this curriculum, we could hardly wait to get started on the lapbook too about Beethhoven.

Music Composer Lapbooks

The lapbooks are on a separate cd which made it nice because I could just print off each week what we wanted to do that day.

Zeezok Publishing Review Beethoven Lapbook and Reader
Bell Book - Zeezok Lapbook
Homeschool Music Curriculum which includes a lapbook about composers.

The cd does have pictures of the lapbook on each composer along with helpful instructions as you prepare each one. 

Music Composer Lapbook 1
Music Composer Lapbook 2
MiniBook Chiming Bells Beethoven by ZeeZok

{The Chiming Tower Bells were used in the biography about Ludwig Beethoven to tell about his favorite things and it was one of Tiny’s favorite minibooks.}

So I was thrilled when I saw the color minibooks and the fact they contained information to teach your child. 

In other words, most of them had information to glue in the inside instead of giving your child tons of blank, useless pages. 

Sure there are minibooks for him to write in, but again the emphasis on an interactive hands-on tool should be about absorbing the information and not about always having to color, craft or cut.

The lapbook is just one of the many hands-on activities found through out the course.

 Too, there are more than enough activities to choose from whether your child is younger or older. 

For example, we left out one minibook that asked Tiny what some of his favorite things were.  It was just too young for him.  So I liked the fact that there were plenty of activities to choose from for every age.

I am putting the rest of my posts I did on this curriculum at the bottom of this one so you can read about them too.

Hands–On Music Ideas

Not having a music background, but wanting my sons to keep pursuing their love of it, I give Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades Book 1 a huge two thumbs up. 

If you have serious musicians in your family, you will appreciate too the scope and sequence found in the beginning of the student activity book showing music appreciation and music theory standards.

Product Facts a Glance Zeezok Publishing

Product Name:  Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades Book

Count the cost by remembering that this includes geography, history, music vocabulary, hands-on ideas, timelines and character trait studies.  It is a two year study to complete all the hands-on activities, 7 lapbooks, listen to all the beautiful pieces and complete the whole student activity book

Type of Product: Physical student book which is approximately 353 pages. { It is recommended that each child have their own activity book.} Music CDS, Lapbook CD and 7 biographies.

Each reader averages from approximately 118 pages for the shortest reader to approximately 166 pages for the longer book.  All of the books include notorious and famous music pieces.

Grades: K – 6th.

{But there are things in the music and knowledge of the composers’ background that I feel a junior high or budding new musician in high school would benefit from because of the depth of music theory. Certainly not babyish.}

See more about Zeezok Music Curriculum in the posts below!

Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat
Fun & Easy Hands-On Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation
Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat
Beethoven Chiming Bells Minibook
Beethoven & The French Revolution Minibook
Beethoven & The French Revolution? Minibook

More Homeschool Music Curriculum Resources

  • Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day.
  • Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation
  • Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study
  • Music Appreciation – Beethoven Chiming Bells Minibook

16 CommentsFiled Under: Product Review, Sponsored Posts, Teach Music Tagged With: musicappreciation

Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day

May 24, 2015 | 9 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to easily add art and music to your homeschool day is well – so not easy. Also, look at Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study.

They tend to be subjects that can be left out.

Although we have good intentions, it just doesn’t happen.

Besides art and music are really what stirs the imagination and are creative outlets.

Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day

I’m sharing tips on how to easily add them to your day without a lot of planning.

One secret tip to easily add art and music to your day is to not schedule them.

As fixated as I am on schedules, I am equally fixated with homeschooling simply.

6 Ways to Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool

Look at these easy ways to fold in art and music to your day simply without adding one more subject to your day.

1. Add Art to Writing or Composition

With the growing list of homeschool subjects that comes with each grade, it is easy to run out of homeschool day before you do subjects.

Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I learned this double duty tip when Mr. Senior 2013 was first beginning to write.

Kindergarten Art @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I learned he was very much more interested in writing when he could express his words through pictures.

Instead of scheduling a formal time for art, he just folded it in when he was writing.

Because I was developing his imagination and love for creativity, having a story to go along with his picture gave him the spark he needed to create.

When I started, I used the whole series of Draw Write Now. 

These books allowed a small part of writing and then drawing to strengthen fine motor skills. 

And these books are absolute keepers in my homeschool world.

2. Music or Art can be added to your current study of history.

As Mr. Senior 2013 grew and had a similar love of history, I allowed drawing of history scenes or battles as a way for him to express himself.

Again without having to add in drawing, we just covered history along with drawing.

Then the love of simple drawing morphed into a full art study in high school.

We loved the series Draw and Write Through History in the early years.

Additionally, looking up what is the music during a history period is a perfect introduction to the history period.

For example, we’ve also used Music in our Homeschool Courses.

For example, look at the list of music courses below which you can teach in your homeschool.

  • World Music for Elementary
  • 15-Minute Music Lessons
  • 20th Century Music Appreciation for High School (36 Lessons to Earn a 1/2 Credit in High School Fine Arts)
  • State Songs of the 50 U.S. States
  • A Year of Charlotte Mason Music Lessons

Too, with science there is no need to make a choice between science and art. 

3. Add Art to Science.

Find creative opportunities to add in art.

Science and Art @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus(Draw a cell and label it.)

If there is a way to illustrate a science concept, let your child do it.

He will remember projects and the content too for many years after he is older and especially when he can add in an artful element.

4. Add Music to every day learning.

Music was no different. We folded it into our day naturally too.

Music can be done while exercising and too some children learn better while listening to music.

  • Add music to every day learning.
Early Learning Music Resources @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I rounded up the DVDs I created way back (I’m not that old but in this day and age with technology you feel that way) when I had “opening” in Preschool and Kindergarten with all of my boys.

I rounded up learning songs and arranged them in the way I wanted to so that my learning day could last longer with music.

We sung these songs every day as a way to learn our ABCs, days of the weeks, continents and even math.

I used resources like Sing to Learn and Rock ‘N Learn:Addition & Subtraction Rap.

Too, though I had no musical background when I first began to homeschool, it was up to me teach them how to read music in between their music lessons.

5. Music can be added to phonics.

  • Do music instead of phonics one day.

Right away, I learned that music is like learning another language.

Many days we simply sat together in the living room and did music theory.

Not only did we learn about  the musical notes but the rhythm helped my boys to learn about the “beats” or syllables when reading.

I never felt like I was skipping on their reading for the day but giving them another way to feel the beat or syllables within each sentence.

All of my boys not only managed to read above grade level, but learned music theory in the process.

6. Fold art & music together for the subject.

  • Focus on a musical composer.

We did lapbooks using Zeezok to study a composer, some language arts, geography and hands-on activities.

Instead of feeling like I was only covering music for the day, we added in writing about the composer, the history of the time period they lived in and geography when studying about the country the composer lived in.

Instead of scheduling separate assignments for art and music, let those areas embellish the every day things that your child needs to learn.

More Homeschool Music Curriculum Resources

  • Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day
  • Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat
  • Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation
  • Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study
  • Music Appreciation – Beethoven Chiming Bells Minibook

Art and music have a way of presenting up learning in an alternative way and of finding a way into your child’s heart that makes learning fun.

9 CommentsFiled Under: Teach Music Tagged With: art, high school, middleschool, music

Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation

February 13, 2014 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Tiny has been loving the easy hands-on activities he has been doing as we have been going through the curriculum by Zeezok Music Appreciation. Also, look at Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study.

One of the reasons I wanted to review this curriculum was because of our love of unit studies. 

Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation

The homeschool music curriculum is Zeezok Music Appreciation – Book 1.

Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation

Many curriculum providers may not have on their website a product description of their curriculum as a unit study.

However, this curriculum goes above and beyond in fitting my description of a comprehensive unit study.

Beethovens Porridge

Zeezok Music Appreciation

Beyond having work texts, each unit is filled with hands-on ideas that are easy.  

Sometimes I know I fuss over hands-on ideas too much, but they don’t have to be complicated. 

I always have to remind myself of that too.  

Also though in the music appreciation curriculum other subjects like history, geography and language arts are certainly included.

You’ll love Zeezok Music Appreciation – Book 1.

You know I told you we honed in on a study of Beethoven and one easy hands-on idea suggested was to make Beethoven’s porridge.

Beethovens Porridge 2
Beethovens Porridge 3

We tweaked the activity a bit to fit our need, plus the original recipe I wanted to preserve in the curriculum so I don’t ruin any surprises for you.

Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation

We have enjoyed getting to know Beethoven’s lively music personality as he directed from his piano. 

He would forget that he was a soloist as he became so engrossed in it that he would jump up and begin conducting.  We feel kindred spirits with him as he would leap in the air at the loud parts, wave his arms to the skies and even crouch in quiet parts.

Look at the parts that come with the curriculum Zeezok Music Appreciation – Book 1.

Tiny would not ever forgive me if I showed you the pictures I took as he acted that out when reading about those tidbits on Beethoven and listening to his music. 

Easy Hands-On Ideas for Music Appreciation

The porridge pictures are not quite as exciting, you’ll just have to imagine the other pictures.

Later this month, I will be posting a full review on this curriculum that we are savoring every bit of the way. 

Because there is no way in one post I can tell you the things we have been loving about our music curriculum, I shared a few other things we have done on this unit below.

More Homeschool Music Curriculum Resources

  • Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day
  • Homeschool Music Curriculum on the Beat
  • Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation
  • Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study
  • Music Appreciation – Beethoven Chiming Bells Minibook

Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation
Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation
Fun & Easy Hands-on Ideas with Zeezok Music Appreciation

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Hands-On Activities, Product Review, Sponsored Posts, Teach Music Tagged With: musicappreciation

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