Music and the Home School: More Unit Study Lists

Music is one of the things in home school that seems to be the hardest to incorporate. I have, in past posts, made lists of music that could be used along with science and history lessons to help bring things together in an artful and well-rounded way. After scouring iTunes and the internet thoroughly, I've found some real treasures I want to share with you. I am so thankful for iTunes "preview" feature that allows me to listen before buying.


We use Christian Cottage Unit Studies (which is a Charlotte Mason approach to history and science). Everything I do, except maybe math, revolves around this─music, foreign language, art, reading...


This "list" of music appreciation listening is going to follow the run of unit studies that are in this curriculum. But, they can be used for just about any curriculum since these are topics that are covered in pretty much all classrooms.

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Music Appreciation for Roots and Relations: The Foundation of Civilizations Unit Study 

Listen to Haydn’s The Creation  (this is a whole 2 disc listening experience, so there are no other ‘assignments’ for this unit)

                        or for younger students

"Creation of the World" by Darius Milhaud

Music Appreciation for Light and Matter Unit Study

Listen to “Light” by Hans Zimmer from The Thin Red Line soundtrack

Music Appreciation for Early Civilizations Unit Study

Listen to Ancient Lyre music by Michael Levy

·       An Ancient Lyre

·       Echoes of Ancient Ur

·       Hurrian Hymn  No. 6 (c.1400BCE) Ancient Mesopotamian Musical Fragment

Listen to EL-HAWZI by Hossam Ramzy (Egyptian Rai)

Listen to Dulab Huzam by George Dimitri Sawa (The Art of the Early Egyptian Qanun)

Listen to Ancient Memories by Derek Bell (The Mystic Harp)

•  Learn what a harp looks and sounds like
•  Learn what a lyre looks and sounds like
•  Learn what a Qanun (kanun) looks and sounds like and where it originates from

Music Appreciation for Oceanography Unit Study

Listen to “Tsunami” from the album Bending the Light: Chamber Works…

Listen to “La Mer” by Debussy

Listen to “A Sea Symphony” by Vaughan Williams

Listen to “Sea Preludes” by Douglas Lilburn

Listen to “Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium” by Camille Saint-Saëns

Music Appreciation for Greece and Rome Unit Study

Listen to “Roman Banquet” by Michael Levy

Listen to “The First Delphic Hymn to Apollo” (c. 138 BCE) Ancient Greek Musical Fragment by Michael Levy

Listen to “Song Seikilos” (1^st Century Greek Song) by San Antonio Vocal Arts Ens.

Listen to ”Ancient Dance” by Petros Tabouris Ensemble

Listen to “Pompei” by Synaulia (music from Ancient Rome Vol.1)

Listen to “Lamentation of Tekmessa” by Christodoulos Halaris

• Research some of the Roman Musical Instruments such as the Roman Tuba, askaules, aulos, and the syrinx

 

Music Appreciation for Weather Unit Study 

Listen to Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”

Listen to “Stormy Weather” by Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra

Listen to “Thunder and Lightning Polka” by Johann Strauss Jr.  

Listen to “Wind” by Peter Davison

Music Appreciation for Middle Ages Unit Study

Listen to Music for a Medieval Banquet by Drew Minter, Judish Malafronte, Mary Springfels, and Newberry Consort

Listen to “Medieval Music: Laudario di Contona” by Vocal Ensemble of Montpellier

Listen to “Salterello” by The Dufay Collective

Listen to “Medieval Dance Music” from the album Indroducing Continuum

• Learn what “chant” sounds like and where it began
• Learn about the beginnings of written music

Music Appreciation for Bread of Life: Birds, Biomes, Bugs, and Bodies Unit Study

Listen to:

BUGS
Franz Schubert's Der Einsame D 800 (The Hermit)
Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos, Book VI, BB 105, No. 142, From the Diary of a Fly
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Overture to the Wasp
Modest Mussorgsky's Mephistopheles’s Song Of The Flea
Chet Atkins' Centipede Boogie
Thomas Arne's Where The Bee Sucks There Lurk I
Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee
Kalevi Aho's Insect Symphony (7th Symph.)
Bela Bartok's Night Music
Roussel's The Spider's Feast
Ralph Vaughn Williams' The Wasps Suite
Tchaikovsky's Chorus of Insects
Grieg's La Papillon (The Butterfly)

ANIMALS
Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals
J. S. Bach's Where My Sheep Safely Graze
Rossini's La Boutique fantasque: Galop (horses)
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake
Respighi's Prelude from The Birds
Anderson's The Waltzing Cat 
 
PLANTS
Jonas Forssell: I begynnelsen (The Kingdom of Plants),
Lakmé: The Flower Duet (BBC Concert Orchestra),
Don Quixote: Flower Walt


Music Appreciation for Astronomy Unit Study

Listen to The Planets by Gustav Holst (this is, again, a whole album of listening, so it’s the only ‘assignment’ for this unit)

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That brings us to the end of the the first volume of Christian Cottage Unit Studies. If you are interested in seeing some of what is included in these unit studies, please see my posts on Year One, Year Two, and Year Three or check out their website linked at the beginning of this post. 

Year Two

We spent the majority of our second year working
on a Greece and Rome unit study. It was pretty spread out through the year, as I put more emphasis on the math, reading, and writing studies. But, we did get a lot out of it. We took a few field trips.

Once again, living in Turkey came in very handy as we were able to find great places to get some hands on learning.




Our favorite local spot, Anavarza castle, provided a lot of great opportunites to include a personal lesson in using a slingshot, a walk through a real victory gate, several aqueducts, and Roman baths
that we could jump into and touch.

The boys enjoyed searching for hidden treasure. At the base of the mountain is an ancient city that dates back to Roman rule. There are still coins from the many eras that followed buried under the dirt. Just walking around, we found several fun items of interest.





The treck up to the castle was definitely a long one, but well worth it. From the top, we could see all the ancient buildings, roads, and even an amphitheater still half buried on the hillside.


Walking through each piece of this ancient city made me seriously wonder what it would have been like to live in those days. The terrain was almost unbearable to walk on let alone to farm in. We were shown the remains of a great arena and the spot carved out of the hillside where the ruler of the time would have sat to watch over the games. It was all there. All the things we read about but don't ever get to see with our own eyes.

During Christmas time, I was in charge of putting together something for the kids at church to do. We've all seen the traditional Christmas plays that have the manger scene, sheep, angels, and all the trappings. Very cute, but I decided to go with a different idea.

I had ordered some books through Voice of the Martyrs, and thought that one of them looked like a fun idea for a Christmas play. It's called The Story of Saint Nicholas of Myra: More than Reindeer and a Red Suit and is part of the Holiday Heroes Collection.

I used this book to write a play about who St. Nicholas really was and how he lived out his faith in a radical way. Of course, the costumes were a whole different ball of wax. But, with a little creativity and some will power, we made it work. I made David try on one of the Roman guard costumes to make sure it would work and look somewhat believable. It just happened to fit in with our home school curriculum and timing. Weird how stuff like that falls in our laps at the right time!

We also attempted a Roman feast, wearing togas and other traditional garb. It was a strange meal when we first looked at the recipe, but everyone really enjoyed it.

Once again, we used the Evan-Moor History Pockets book to supplement some arts and other more hands on things. Another book I found that was fun to use was Hands-On Heritage: Ancient Greece Activity Book.

I also found some of these other books that look helpful and quite stimulating:

History of Civilization Series by Milliken Publishing Co.

Ancient Civilizations by Instructional Fair, Inc.

ISBN 1-56822-060-X

My Book of Mazes: Around the World by Kumon Publishing

Draw and Write Through History: Greece and Rome

David made some laurel wreath crowns for us to wear. They didn't stay on well, so they worked only for pictures.






The kids were a bit eager to get out of costume after this whole event. They were pieced together and pinned in some strange places. They were good sports about it, though. It was the waiting for dinner to be ready that made it so hard to bear, I think.

We got a lot of good photos out of the deal. They were so good about posing for us!! Morgan's little dress was the cutest part. She modeled and posed like she was on a runway! I had fun doing up her hair with ribbons and she looked like such the little Roman queen.

My costume didn't turn out nearly as wonderfully as hers. We really just dug through the fabric box in the closet and put together whatever we could find. Somehow, there was enough for everyone. I'm purposely leaving out the photos of me. They're not the slightest bit cute.








We used the Crafts from the Past series again for this unit. We're craft freaks, what can I say? Our model Trojan Horse turned out beautifully. It was a little time consuming, but makes kind of a nice little decoration for the house.

The only other unit we did for science and history was a unit on weather. It was another fun one, full of hands on things to do.

We made a lot of weather instruments.

A wind vane

A thermometer

A barometer


We also did some charting of the weather and learning on how different aspects of weather behave.

A cheap little instrument that we got as a gift was this little Tornado Tube. The kids in the neighborhood all wanted to try it out and see how it worked.

Year two came to a close and we prepared to bring our middle child into the official home school mix. We also prepared to move back to the US and looked through all the regulations for our new home state. It didn't seem possible that we had just put away two whole years of home schooling. Looking back, it was whirlwind tour. (pun intended)