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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Incorporating Classical Music Into Our School Day

As I mentioned recently, I've become increasingly interested in Charlotte Mason of late. One of the things that she mentions is incoporating music into the curriculum. This was something simple that I could do right away, and so can you!

Incorporating music the Charlotte Mason way is all about exposure. So just go through your CD collection, find a composer you think you and your children will enjoy, and expose them to his or her music for a term. I (sad to say) didn't have a single classical CD to my name, so I went to the thrift store and chose one from the rack. I purchased a "best of" Mozart CD for a whopping .50 cents! Amazon works well for this too.

Each school day, during Little Bean's independent work, I slip the CD in as background music. The goal is that over the length of a term (6 to 12 weeks), the kids will internalize the music and be able to recognize it as Mozart's style. No formal instruction about the composer is necessary, but after we've gotten used to him, we may incorporate some notebooking pages and make a continuous notebook of the different composers we listen to over time.

One of the first comments Little Bean made after we had been listening to the CD for a few minutes was, "Mom, doesn't it sound like something is going to happen?". I thought that was pretty cute!

If you are interested in more information about music study the Charlotte Mason way, here is a great lens to check out on the subject--Composer Study--Charlotte Mason Style.

1 comment:

Jackie said...

Great Choice! Mozart happens to be my favorite composer, then Beethoven. Kids love it, my grandson who is now 3 would calm completely when he was a baby if we put on classical. I exposed my kids to it too. My husband introduced me to it, and still plays "name that tune" to this day. He is surprised at how much I know now. My niece love classical music because it is "so mathematical". Who'd of thought?

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