October Music Study: Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt

This week we are listening to Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt. Though I am not particularly enamored of the Peer Gynt story, I have always loved the music! Some ideas to enjoy Peer Gynt: Start out your morning by playing "Morning". Have the kids imagine a sunrise scene,...

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October Music Study: Music Inspired by Shakespeare

This week we're listening to Mendelssohn's incidental music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream". There are many Shakespeare-inspired or Shakespeare-related music you can listen to if you don't have this particular album. Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, for instance, or...

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Teaching Music: Sight Reading Chef

I just a found a really nifty online helper that generates sight reading sheets. For those of you teaching your kids music at home, this is a great tool I've noticed my kids need this badly, as do I. And while I could write my own sight-reading sheets, I appreciate...

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October Music: For the Young Ones

I'm adding one more resource that may be more useful for those with really young children and are not ready to go into an intensive composer-literature study. Music Education Madness has several suggestions for using literature while teaching music at the same time,...

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October Music Study:  Where Music and Literature Meet

October Music Study: Where Music and Literature Meet

This month's Composer Study explores music inspired by literature. I am borrowing heavily from our local orchestra's study this month, and throwing in a few ideas of my own: We start off with Beethoven's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, the only music for...

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Where I Wandered

Betsy Hart's post on educating one's children: the goal is "Heaven, not Harvard" Why I Believe in Homeschooling by Tina Smith The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education Our 16-yo dd attended a Reggio-Emilia preschool and blossomed wonderfully. When we...

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The Cooking of Ancient Rome

The Cooking of Ancient Rome

It's about time we finished our Ancient Rome studies, we've been plugging away at it for several months now. Most enjoyable was our daily readings (aloud) from Famous Men of Rome -- those were some interesting characters and the kids had tremendous fun making up...

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Homeschooling with Stamps

When I first came to the US, a good friend who migrated the year before introduced me to stamp collecting. She and I loved the same things: stationery, pretty things, and music, so stamp collecting became another hobby we enjoyed together. Sometimes we'd send each...

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Composer of the Month:   Johannes Ockeghem

Composer of the Month: Johannes Ockeghem

The music you're hearing right now is Johannes Ockeghem's Intemerata Dei Mater. I've been posting at the 4real Forum about this composer and his works which we are studying/listening to for the month of September. Click here for the entire thread, which includes...

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Claude Debussy: Golliwogg’s Cakewalk

This week we have been listening to Children's Corner -- a favorite is Golliwogg's Cakewalk. Besides what Classics for Kids offers, some other interesting things I came across when I was looking for more information about this piece: Golliwog's Cakewalk by Charles T....

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Homeschooling Pages

I've been working on our homeschooling pages here. Some of the things you'll find: my kids' current curriculum and booklists, our music and art plans, free Latin flashcards, a list of Pinoy homeschooler sites, how-to book suggestions, etc.

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Composer Flashcards

Find of the Day! - pdf file from Layton Music There are other things there that may be of interest, like Note Name Cards, Rhythm Cards, etc. I've never been a flashcard person, since Aisa when we first started homeschooling didn't like them and I stopped buying/making...

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The Art Plan ’til 2014!!

is here. Haaaah!!! I finally finished it. Not that it won't change... but when a plan's in place... the chances of something happening is increased a hundredfold.

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