Teaching Music

Learning music is like learning a foreign language.  It stretches you.  It takes time.  You may never use it professionally later in life.  But it's worth the effort to not be illiterate in an international language that crosses cultures, continents, and classes.  It's worth opening your heart and mind to an art form that requires high levels of brain function and emotion at the same time.  Martin Luther (the theologian) once said, "Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world."  So why not share that treasure with our children?

The concept of teaching basic music is not new.  In fact, way back when I was in elementary school, basic music instruction was a part of the curriculum.  Every week, my class would head to the music hall where we would have a class in basic music theory.  Then, by the time we were in 3rd or 4th grade, we knew enough music to be able to play the recorder (this is an instrument).  It may have seemed like a waste of time to some, but having this hour of music each week made school more interesting and taught me musical concepts that I still use today.  If you don't get music instruction at school, where else are you going to get it?

Needless to say, our kindergarten curriculum involves learning music.  We decided to start music instruction with piano lessons.  Boy Wonder is a little young for piano lessons (when I taught piano lessons, I preferred having my students start in 1st or 2nd grade), but since he has a good grasp on math, I figured we might as well forge ahead into the world of music.  As expected, after only a few weeks, we're at the point where we can combine music with our math or spelling curriculum and create a hybrid lesson.

The best part about hybrid lessons is that it's not difficult to come up with these kind of problems if you know any musical theory.  If you don't know musical theory or are too busy to create your own worksheets like me, there are some great resources on the internet.  For example, I found this wonderful website, http://funandlearnmusic.com/ that has free downloadable music math pages which are way cuter than any I would create on my own.  This website has quite a few worksheets that address both basic and more advanced theory concepts in a fun way. 

Hybrid lessons work for just about every subject in school.  Music Math is kind of awesome. It forces the student to learn and memorize music concepts while allowing them to practice their math skills.
Similarly, Music Spelling with the A-G alphabet reinforces basic spelling with note recognition.  For kiddos who struggle to identify the lines and spaces on the grand staff, Music Spelling can help. Aside from musical theory, there are tons of opportunities to use music in our Bible, Social Studies, History and Science lessons as well.  In fact, I will never forget my pronouns or helping verbs because my middle school English teacher used music to help us memorize all kinds of concepts!  Who knew that music could be so educational?!

Music might be the best tool that I've got in my homeschool mommy shed.  It's a language that I know well and understand. It's a subject that lends itself to any situation or setting.  It's an avenue to praise our Heavenly Father.  And hopefully my children will come to discover that music is a friend for life.