Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades is recommended for students in grades 5-8. This curriculum will increase students knowledge and appreciation of music and even history as the students study the events going on in the world around each composer. This course has several different components:
9 Composer Biographies (Chopin Early Year and Chopin Later Years, Robert Schumann and Mascot Ziff , Adventures of Richard Wagner , Stephen Foster and His Little Dog Tray ,The Young Brahms, The Story of Peter Tchaikovsky , Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Ballet , Edward MacDowell and His Cabin in the Pines.) The illustrated biographies are paperback books that gives interesting and detailed information about the composer and their lives. Each of the books also contain sheet music to several of the composers compositions.
Student Activity Book The activity book is a paperback consumable book. It is recommended that you have one for each student. In the book you will find a variety of activities about the components of music (time signature, note values and names, etc..) character trait studies, recipes, interesting facts, history, geography, timelines, grammar, and more. Comprehension questions and quizzes are also in the book and answer keys are provided.
Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades App–QR codes (this is one of my favorite things about this curriculum!) There are QR codes in the front of the activity book that you can scan with a tablet or phone that will take you to a YouTube page so you can listen to the coordinating tracks for each composer. Also, throughout the activity book there are other codes you can scan to find out additional information online about a particular topic. If you cannot access this information with a QR scanning device you can access it online via a website.
A Journal Notebook or lapbook is also recommended. The journal can be as simple as a spiral notebook. The lapbook can be purchased separately from Zeezok. There is also a coloring book that can be purchased to go along with the program.
Music Appreciation 2 has a suggested weekly schedule in the front of the student book. We completed the schedule over our 4 day school work and started with the first suggested composer Chopin. We do a lot of reading aloud in our home so I read the biographies aloud to my 8, 10, 12, and 14 year olds. They all also enjoyed listening to the music. The book work in the student activity book was assigned to my 14 year old son.
We absolutely love the biographies. They are written in story format and are just packed full of information on the composers lives. Did you know that when Chopin was very small he heard a song once and then played it on the piano? Or that when he was on his way to Paris as a young man he was down to his last bit of money and wasn't sure what he would do when he opened a gift from a friend and not only did it have money but a hand painted autographed portrait of Beethoven? I also love that they include the sheet music to some of the selections. It is fun to follow along with it as it plays.
The student activity book is packed full of so may wonderful things. It is absolutely amazing! There is plenty of information given about music itself as I mentioned above and I love that. Especially for my son who does not play a musical instrument and has no background in music at all. I love that they include comprehension questions, character trait discussions, geography, and fun things like recipes. But one of our favorite things in the activity book is the Tidbits of Interest section. In the biography on Chopin's Early years it talks about he and his sister being sickly but doesn't really tell with what. In the activity book we learn that it was TB. In the Later Years book Chopin is really struggling to make it with his music. He is in Paris and poor and helps his fellow countrymen as much as he can. We had no idea what was going on in Poland at the time until we read the details of the upheaval in Europe at the time.
The music being accessed through QR Codes is my favorite part of this program! It may seem like a little thing but we do not have a CD player in our house. We have to use a DVD player. Putting the CD in every day and finding the correct track and then making sure it got put away in the proper place to locate it the next day could be a pain. I also always worried about the children scratching the disks. With the QR Codes, I just need to have my phone. When we come to the track in the biography I scan it and we can listen to the selection then go right back to reading. This is so convenient! We also love the short videos you can access with the codes.
We have loved our study of Chopin and look forward to reading through the next biography on Robert Schumann. The Nutcracker is one of our favorite pieces of music and cannot wait to find out more about Peter Tchaikovsky's life.
I highly recommend Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades! To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!
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