Music!!!

We've almost finished up our Music Unit! We still need to go to my brother-in-law's Junior High band classroom to see instruments, and hopefully an orchestra concert, too. The thing I have loved the most in teaching the kids about music is seeing them enjoy classical pieces and want to listen to them all the time, even if they do steal my Tchaikovsky cd. :o)

I love knowing that they appreciate the beauty and complexity of the music and get excited about picking out the sound of certain instruments. They definitely have their favorites... Bach's Fugue in D minor, Beethoven's 9th, Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, and of course, Grieg's the Hall of the Mountain King.

These are pictures of Nathan's Music LapBook. Brandon's is very similar.















I love this quote from Handel, said after a performance of the Messiah: "My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better." This has become my motto for homeschool this year. I've made a nice copy of it and have it hanging in our school room as a reminder of why I do homeschool.





These two pages have tri-fold's from the different orchestral periods, each lists the years, some composers from that time and the typical orchestra seating chart for that period.










This page has Nate's answer to why music is an important part of our culture...
"It helps us express our feelings in a language that anyone can understand all over the world."











You may not be able to see it, but the envelope says "Brass instruments uncoiled" and has small tags attached to pieces of string that are as long as the brass instrument would be if it were uncoiled. The tuba is 16 feet long!








We had two more pages, one with four pockets, each representing one of the instrument families and containing cards with names and pictures of those instruments. We used them for lots of activities. We also learned about the different parts of the ear and how it works, as well as sound waves. Each of the kids also did a small report on their favorite composer. Nathan chose Johann Sebastian Bach and Brandon chose Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Overall, it has been a fabulous unit!