Music Studies

I have to admit that I haven't had a lot of motivation to do our music appreciation curriculum in the evenings the last few months, so now we're playing a little catchup.  Last night, we listened to Classics for Kids about Vivaldi and learned a lot of fun and interesting information.  Then, we moved onto the Classical Era of Classical music and watched Chuck VanderChuck's video on the PBS website (easy to find by googling) and the Fast and Friendly Guide to the Classical Period on Youtube.  My kids loved these short videos.

Now, we're moving onto the composers of the Classical period.  We started this morning with Beethoven.  We began by listening to the shows on Beethoven on Classics for Kids site.  My kids took notes on a Beethoven notebooking sheet I found online and listed in the post I wrote a few months ago on Music Appreciation  (see Here).  After listening to the first two shows, I printed off Classics For Kids worksheet on Beethoven and my kids enjoyed the activities on the sheet.  After we finished listening to all 5 shows (only 6 minutes each) about Beethoven, we watched a few videos on youtube that my kids really enjoyed.

First, we watched the Peabody and Sherman clip of Improbable History about Beethoven and I asked them to tell me all the things from the video that couldn't have happened (ie. celebrating 4th of July with fireworks, cars, Beethoven could hear, making a cake with mustard, etc.).  Then, I asked them to tell me what was true in the video (Beethoven's wild hair, playing the piano, wrote the symphonies--just not in the order in the cartoon).

After watching this video, we watched one more clip that we really enjoyed about Beethoven, which was the Muppets singing Ode To Joy.

  

It's quite fun to watch!