The History of Classical Music

The History of Classical Music

This is a wonderful but resource intensive approach for both studying the history of classical music and developing music appreciation and recognition skills. Targeted at students in grades four through eight, the course is outlined in this 34-page, full-color guide.

I love the two key resources selected for this study: Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers by Patrick Kavanaugh and The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine. The Music Masters Collection by VOX Music Masters (18-CD collection) provides both music and educational narration. Literature selections used with the study include Dance Me a Story, Paganini: Master of Strings, and Musical Genius. The two "volume" coloring book, A Coloring Book of Great Composers, from Bellerophon Books offers information in addition to illustrations to be colored. The companion History of Classical Music Timeline is similar to others from Beautiful Feet with figures to cut out, possibly color, and affix to the enclosed timeline. Another hands-on resource that reinforces much of the information is the Classical and Romantic Composers Card Game. Website links included in the lesson plans offer still more multi-sensory learning activities.

If that's not enough, there are even more optional resources listed in the guide along with some useful websites.

The guide provides 75 lessons. These might be completed over one or two years, depending upon whether you used them once or twice a week. The study requires creation of a student notebook where all work is kept. The course extends into geography, history, religion, and language arts with reading, vocabulary, composition assignments, research projects, drawings, map work, and listening activities, but work in subject areas other than music is only supplemental.

The Jumbo Pack includes the guide plus all of the CDs, books, and timeline.

Pricing Information

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Instant Key

  • Need For Parent or Teacher Instruction: moderate to high
  • Learning Environment: group or one-on-one
  • Grade Level: grades 4-8
  • Educational Methods: real books, music, multisensory, interactive, hands-on, game, experiential, lots of variety, stories
  • Technology: PDF
  • Educational Approaches: eclectic, classical, Charlotte Mason
  • Religious Perspective: Christian

Publisher's Info

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