My schooling style leans heavily in the direction of Charlotte Mason, which I am always looking for ways to include learning about things like artists, composers and good literature. I love to read, so the literature is easy but I am not naturally an artist nor a composer, so art and music are a little more difficult. When my kids were younger, we were asked to review an elementary music appreciation course from
Zeezok Publishing that we thoroughly enjoyed. So I was delighted when they asked us to review their new product
Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades.
The course consists of nine readers and a Student Book. There are other things you can buy to add on, like a lapbook and a coloring book, but this is the basic package. I was sent a paper copy of the Student Book and physical copies of eight of the readers (the other one was sent by ebook because of a small mistake, if you buy the package you will receive all the books in physical form, or you can choose audio or ebook form).
The readers are actually biographies of the composers studied in the program. They contain easy-to-read text and and black-and-white simply drawn illustrations as well as sheet music for some of the composer's songs.
The Student Book is actually also the Teacher's Guide and contains all of the instructions you need to follow the program.
Another component of the program are the QR codes found throughout the book. There are instructions for downloading an app on your device to read the codes or you also can just type in a website in your browser and pull it up just as easily. This website contains all of the music you need to listen to during the course. It also has some videos that enhance the program. Let me just tell you that this was sooooo much nicer and easier to use than the CDs in the elementary program! It is all laid out so you can quickly find exactly what you need.
This product is aimed at 5th to 8th graders, but my 10th and 11th graders enjoyed it just as much as my middle schoolers. I think it would be great for most high schoolers but especially if they had not previously been exposed to classical music and composer study.
There are seven composers included: Chopin; Schumann; Wagner; Foster; Brahms; Tchaikovsky; and McDowell.
So using
Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades is easy. If you have the product and an internet connection, it is "open and go". The composers are color-coded so it is easy to find your place in the book. And each composer has a schedule or weekly outline right at the beginning of their section. Chopin takes five weeks and all the others take four (if you follow the schedule). The schedule tells you what parts to read in the reader each week and then what activities to do in the Student Book.
You can have your children read the biographies on their own, or you can use them as a read-aloud (especially if you have multiple children) but the activities are meant to be done together, parent included.
The activities are varied. There are quizzes and tests to take, like the one below. There are comprehension questions and short answer questions as well, but we prefer to do those orally.
There are character qualities tied into each composer, fun facts to read, mapping exercises to bring in geography learning, information about all types of unusual instruments, family trees, histories of what else was going on in the world during the composer's lifetime, musical terms to learn and explore, recipes to cook, and of course, music to listen to!
Each day, or every other day, or however often you choose to learn some music appreciation, you just pick up the Student book and work your way through the activities. It really is as simple as that. We added it into our Morning Meeting (group work/morning basket/ circle time for teens/ whatever you want to call it) and just do a little bit throughout the week.
We highly recommend
Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades for your entire family!
