My Review of 21 Lessons in 20th Century Music Appreciation

My family is a musical family.  My husband and I both come from a long line of musicians and people who appreciate music.  In fact, we met as vocalists in a choir in college.  Throughout our life as parents, we’ve tried to impart our love for music on our children.  We’ve really tried to encourage both vocal music and piano.  Imagine my excitement when I was given the opportunity to review a BRAND NEW Music Appreciation curriculum.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, this post does contain affiliate links.  I only recommend products that I use and love myself!)

As I’ve said before, we love the Charlotte Mason homeschool philosophy.  We love for our children to not just learn about the subjects we are studying but we do our best to allow our kids to experience them.  I noticed right away as I was reading through the intro to this curriculum that this not only can be used for Charlotte Mason Homeschoolers – it is PERFECT for that style of learning.

 

This curriculum is divided up into 21 lessons.  Each lesson features a composer or a specific genre of music from a specific era.  The lessons share key elements for each composer and some of the history which involves them.

Our Fridays have become our “Charlotte Mason extra curricular day”  which includes music, art, handicrafts and nature study.  This curriculum fits well into our Charlotte Mason Friday.  We read the lesson on a Friday and listen to one of the pieces of music that corresponds with the lesson.  The next week we are able to listen to more of that composer’s work and do a follow up review of the history of the person or style we are studying.  There are plenty of examples of the composer’s works of music included in 21 Lessons in 20th Century American Music Appreciation.  Because of the way this is set up, we are able to study the same composer or lesson for an entire month or, if we prefer, we can do two lessons a month depending on how often we want to listen and how often we want to switch it up.  Even our littles are able to participate in the fun!

 

To give you more of an idea of what this encompasses, the curriculum begins with the study of John Phillip Sousa & Marches and ends with Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz and musical theater after 1965.  There are additional composers and styles listed in the appendix for further study if you and your students want to add more to it, there is a glimpse of what more there is to study and some styles that are not covered in the lessons.

 

I’m also thrilled that there are notebooking pages included, as well.  You can copy them for each lesson and your students can take notes on the history portion as well as what they hear in the music as they are listening.  This is fantastic if you want to make a notebook for each child.  I plan to make a little binder of each of my children who complete this music study.

I’m so excited to get through more of this curriculum and share our joy of music with our kids.  The author of this, Gena Mayo, did a fantastic job at laying this all out.  She took the work out of preparing our Friday music for me!  It is all laid out and ready to go.  No prep = happy mom.  I no longer have to figure out what to teach and when.  I can follow along with her lesson plans and enjoy great music with our kids!

 

I hope you are as thrilled as I am about this music curriculum.  Remember it is currently 50% off with coupon.  Don’t miss out on this deal!  Click here to purchase and use code: August50.

 

 

I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.