Talk to any team sports coach and they will be able to list off all the reasons why team sports are the investment you should make. The martial arts master, the dance teacher, the swim coach, the outdoor enthusiast, the theatre director, and the music teacher will also have an equally convincing list. Over the years, our family has been involved in a variety of extra-curricular activities and there have been times when we’ve regretted our decisions and there have been investments into activities from which we continue to benefit.

Sometimes we parent with a bit of a default setting; without much thought, we sign our children up for activities we were involved in or what our friend group is involved in. Instead, we need to be purposeful.

Five Things to Consider

Pray!

Ask the Lord for direction as you consider extra-curricular activities for your children. They may not be interested in the same things you are. He knows them and He knows their future so spend time asking Him to guide you.

Consider your finances and be creative.

On more than one occasion we were able to barter with instructors for discounted rates; it doesn’t hurt to ask. Extra-curricular activities should not become a financial burden so avoid any mindset that might cause you to take on more than you can comfortably afford. Comparing what your family is able to take on compared to another is a fruitless exercise and that goes for more than just finances. Not all families are set up to take on high levels of time or energy commitments.

Discuss what you value when it comes to extra-curricular activities.

What are you really looking for? You might find that you can cross a few options off your list once you are clear about your values and maybe there is a better way to get what you are looking for.

Do your research!

You need to know how an activity will affect things like church attendance, family mealtime, and your weekends. Be mindful of the effect certain activities will have on family time.

Don’t fall prey to the pressure to start too young.

You won’t regret keeping life simple during the early years. There are so many things you can do as a family that will help prepare your children for any future activities so go skating, head to the pool, and buy some rhythm instruments.

If you are interested in introducing your children to the study of music take a look at the resources below.

How to Grow a Music Lover
Music Study with the Masters
Musical Instruments – Coloring Book
Great Composers – Coloring Book
Springman’s Music CD

The post Avoid Extra Burdens with Extra-Curricular (5 Tips) appeared first on Classical Education Books.

If you want your kids to use the skills they’ve carefully and patiently built up over the last ten months over their summer break, or if you want to bolster your fine arts repertoire, or if you simply want to expose a curious child to music education to see if they might be interested in music lessons come the new school year, then this blog post is for you!

Five easy tips to keep the love of creating music alive in your kids during their summer break. 

Listen

Listening to Classical music is an easily missed component of learning music. Students can get so caught up in perfecting their pieces that they forget the bigger picture of what they are a part of. Go through their music books and find the composers that they’re playing (names are usually in the top right corner on the page), then take to Youtube and Spotify and find out what else they’ve written. Bonus points if you can find videos of professional performers and symphony orchestras to expose your kids to good posture, performance practice, and stage presence.

Books like Meet the Orchestra (for smaller children) and The Story of the Orchestra (for somewhat bigger children) also do a fabulous job of introducing kids to the different instruments used in Western Art Music and can be especially beneficial if your child only has experience with one instrument. The Gift of Music is another fabulous tool if you want to study a particular composer in depth. 

Research 

Using books like The Story of the Orchestra (for middle children) and The Gift of Music (for older children), take the composers you’ve found and listen to their pieces with some background knowledge of the composer. Did you know that Beethoven was already going deaf as he wrote his infamous Fifth symphony? Did you know that Schumann was likely schizophrenic? Did you know that Bach had twenty children? Did you know that much of Mendelssohn’s music was likely written by his sister, Fanny? This sort of background knowledge can inform how you and your children listen to and appreciate the music, and will also benefit them as they go on to play music by these composers. 

Colour

Colouring is a remarkably efficient and flexible way to engage children of all ages in music appreciation. Using colouring books like the Musical Instruments colouring book, the Great Composers colouring book, and the Music Activity Book gives your children a double whammy experience, combining both creative work and studious work. Simply giving them a piece of blank paper and telling them to draw a story that they think the music sounds like is another simple and quick way to get them to listen and use their imagination. Program music (instrumental music that was written to purposefully depict a story) is a great place to start. Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals, Tchaikovsky’s Peter and the Wolf, Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons are great pieces that come with stories already. If you think your child is ready for something more abstract, go for pieces like Beethoven’s 5th symphony, Handel’s Water Music Suite, or Schoenberg’s Piano Suite. 

Expand

Take the opportunity in the summer to expand your child’s (and your own!) taste in music beyond whatever is on the radio or on your playlists already. Listen to Harry Connick Jr. if your child has never been exposed to jazz. Find a family-friendly musical like Newsies and memorize all the lyrics. Discover different styles of folk and fiddle music like Bluegrass, Irish, Old-Time, and Metis. Or go farther abroad and listen to music from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. You’ll find instruments not found in the resources above, and your kids will develop an ear for a wide variety of styles!  

Create

While serious composition can scare off the perfectionists in your children, getting comfortable exploring their instrument outside of structured music is a great exercise that will only serve them in their study of music. Learning simple songs by ear (trying to play a song without looking at a score, just going by how it sounds) is a good place to start. Imitating nature is a good next step – can they make their instrument sound like rain? Like a thunderstorm? Like birds singing? Like a kangaroo jumping around? Like leaves swirling? What about events like a race, or a ballet, or going to church? Exploration like this strengthens familiarity with the instrument and pushes children to take ownership of their tone. 

I hope that after reading through these tips your creative juices are flowing! The ability to appreciate music of all types and forms is an invaluable gift you can give your children, and I encourage the parents reading to nurture this God-given gift in your home. The study of music brings beauty, perseverance, expression, and satisfaction to everyone who digs a little deeper into the history and technique of how music is built. All the best in your summer studies! 

Abigail is a Royal Conservatory of Music graduate; she completed her ARCT in Piano Pedagogy in 2020 and she teaches piano and violin. Abigail is the oldest of 7 and was homeschooled from start to finish. She likes to listen to Bach, Beethoven, and jazz. Other interests include reading, watercolours, and crochet.

The post Summer Music – Tips & Resources appeared first on Classical Education Books.

These days, I enjoy planning themes for the month, finding relevant books, activities, and other resources, and then using our morning time to dive in. I’m amazed at the vast content that we’ve been able to cover over the years and I love watching my children take what they’ve learned from one little picture book into their day and weave it into their play and conversations. The last of my 7 learners is a bit of a reluctant learner but he never turns down a read-aloud or a hands-on activity to accompany the book…another benefit of using books.

June is a great time of year to transition to using more books even if it’s just to keep summer learning going. Curriculum studies are often winding down at this time of year and June is full of educational themes and topics. We’ve pulled together a few book stacks to help you cover the following topics.

June is National Indigenous History Month
Indian Tribes of North America – Coloring Book
Hiawatha
Northwest Coast Indians – Coloring Book
How Summer Came to Canada
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Canadian Fairy Tales
The Indian School

World Ocean Day is June 8^th

Island Boy
My First Book About the Oceans
A Morning to Polish and Keep
What Lives in a Shell
One Morning in Maine
Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean
Oceans
Sea Animals – Sticker & Coloring Book
Time of Wonder

June 5th is National Health and Fitness Day

Hear Your Heart
My First Book About the Brain
How Many Teeth
Lungs
My First Human Body Coloring Book

June 21st is World Music Day

Musical Instruments
Great Composers
Meet the Orchestra
Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers
Music Activity Book
The Story of the Orchestra
The Gift of Music

A few other resources to mention…

June 1st is World Milk Day and we carry a sweet little resource for you to read to your children…Milk From Cow to Carton. You don’t need to look much farther than your grocery store to add a fun activity to accompany this read-aloud; a menu filled with fun dairy foods! If you are looking for a more complete study on where our food comes from we carry a bunch of picture books that are a great place to start: How Do Apples Grow, From Seed to Plant, Honeymakers, The Vegetables We Eat.

It’s the story behind The Swiss Family Robinson that makes this novel a good choice for Fathers Day. The author, Johann David Wyss (1743-1818) was a pastor in Switzerland. He created this story to entertain and instruct his boys after they developed an interest in the Robinson Crusoe story. This is a classic family read-aloud and will prime your children for hours of summer creative play.  If you are looking to add some formal learning to this novel we also carry the Swiss Family Robinson Comprehension Guide. Also, don’t forget that this novel has been made into a movie. See our Movie Night Book Stack for a complete list of novels that have been made into movies.

June marks the beginning of the summer season. The Reasons for the Seasons does a great job explaining why seasons change. Add these titles to round out your child’s understanding of the relationship between the seasons and solar system: The Moon Book, The Sky is Full of Stars, The Big Dipper, Along Came Galileo.

Visit us again next month for a new list of books that you can add to your summer homeschool.

by Adrianne Curwen

Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children.  She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there.  Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new.  She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.

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