Strategies for Teaching Music at Home is a free, downloadable 27-page PDF that is perfect for homeschooling parents who want to include music education without investing in music lessons or who want to broaden music education beyond lessons for a particular instrument.
The book is arranged as a series of tutorials that each focus on an aspect of music education. They can be used in whatever order you wish. Most are easy for parents with little or no musical background to implement, while a few are more advanced, and most ideas can be used with students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. The tutorials are arranged as follows:
- Music Studies
- Directed Listening
- Music Histories
- Instrument Families
- Music Theory
- Clefs and Notes
- Rhythms
- Time Signature
- Scales and Chords
- Create & Construct
- Homemade Percussion Band
- Performing
Parents must read the tutorials and present information, although much can be read directly from the book. The book also includes website links to performances, online activities, directions for homemade instruments, sheet music, royalty-free play scripts, and additional free lessons. An appendix has more information about clefs, two worksheets for practice in naming notes, movement patterns used by conductors, a glossary, and music for six simple songs that can be sung in rounds.
No instruments are required, but access to a keyboard is always helpful, especially when teaching about clefs and notes.
Homeschooling parents can use as many of the tutorials as they wish. Even the first section alone makes it worth downloading the book. It suggests some effective ways to interest children in music through exposure to several genres. For example, author Steve Kloser’s first tutorial explains a practical strategy for setting up listening routines that take no longer than five minutes and require students to respond to musical pieces with what they liked or didn’t like about a piece and why. There are no right or wrong answers, but students have to listen attentively to be able to explain their reactions.
Strategies for Teaching Music at Home should be useful for most homeschooling families, even if they don’t use all the tutorials.
