Looking for a homeschool music appreciation curriculum to add to your learning plans? Here’s how Beautiful Feet Books can help you teach music appreciation with a flexible, family-style curriculum option.
*This is a sponsored post, and I received a complimentary copy of Beautiful Feet Books’ Music Appreciation curriculum for review purposes. Also, this post contains some referral links. See my disclosure for further details.*
I’m always looking for help covering areas in our homeschool that don’t come naturally to me. Music appreciation is one of those areas. Don’t get me wrong, I love music and even played an instrument when I was younger. Unfortunately, my time playing the trombone as a teenager and my Apple Music library haven’t equipped me as well as I’d like for teaching music appreciation.
In other words, there’s more to music appreciation than appreciating music.
That’s why I was so happy to learn that one of our favorite homeschool curriculum publishers, Beautiful Feet Books, added music appreciation to their curriculum lineup. I’ve been working through this new offering with my middle schooler and am excited to share what I’ve learned.
Teaching Homeschool Music Appreciation With Beautiful Feet Books
I’m still working through this music appreciation curriculum with my kiddo, but I’m happy to pass on my observations thus far. Before I do so, here’s an overview of the curriculum.
Overview: Music Appreciation from Beautiful Feet Books
If you’ve used Beautiful Feet Books curricula in your homeschool before, you’re familiar with their blend of reading, notebooking, and extra learning ideas that go with the lessons. This music appreciation curriculum works the same way.
Where Music Appreciation: A Family Study is different is that it’s designed to be used with a wider range of students. That means you can use this family study for students of nearly any age, from elementary to high school grades. (As a mom with kids who are five years apart, I know how rare that is!) This family-style approach means there’s no need to facilitate separate lessons or buy additional curricula for different grade levels.
The Music Appreciation Pack itself includes the following items:
- Teacher guide
- Book of Composers (the spine for the curriculum)
- Downloadable resource pack with coloring pages, vocabulary lists, notebooking elements, recipes, and more.
- Notebook (Note: the pack includes one notebook. If you have more than one student, an inexpensive composition book can also be used.)
As for what is covered through this music appreciation curriculum option, it teaches basic musical terms, genres, and pieces along with music history, instrument classification, and orchestra structure.
All of this happens over the span of 54 lessons. From a scheduling perspective, that means you would complete one lesson a week for about two years or one year if you homeschool year-round.
Finally, a typical music appreciation lesson takes about an hour to work through. Though they vary a little, the lessons follow the same general structure with reading, listening, recording, and options for further exploration. That makes it easy to customize the experience according to age levels and interests.
What We’re Loving about Beautiful Feet Books’ Homeschool Music Appreciation Curriculum
Now that you have had an overview of Music Appreciation: A Family Study, here’s what I appreciate the most about this homeschool music appreciation curriculum.
Beautiful Feet Books can also help you teach U.S. Geography. Read our review of United States Geography for Intermediate Grades here.
The Primary Text: Book of Composers
While our previous experiences with Beautiful Feet Books have used lots of books to work through the topics covered, this one uses a single title, the Book of Composers, for the primary reading components.
This book is such a standout from the other music appreciation titles I’ve read in our years of homeschooling. It begins with ancient music and ends with twentieth century musical movements and contemporary classical music.
What’s more, it also includes lots of paintings and photos, so there’s plenty to look at while learning about instruments, composers, and musical eras.
I also LOVE the curated Spotify playlist codes included throughout the book. That makes it easy to listen to the music discussed in the lessons anytime and anywhere.
Opportunities for Customization
The fact that Music Appreciation: A Family Study is built on the Book of Composers is awesome, but the Teacher Guide provides discussion questions, suggestions for notebooking, and options for further exploration. The options range from internet links to library books for extra reading to craft ideas.
These options for customization are so helpful when you’re homeschooling kids of different grade levels, especially if there’s a significant gap in ages like we have in our family. That makes it easy to complete the reading and listening portions of the lessons together and assign the notebooking and further explanation however it works best for each kiddo.
And because the reality of homeschool life is that things don’t always go according to plan, I sincerely appreciate how its customizable nature can make life easier on busy weeks. It helps so much that the lessons are still great even when you have to skip extras like crafts or Rabbit Trails (recommended learning recommendations) because of distractions, changes in schedule, and other homeschool interruptions.
Simple and Effective
Maybe it’s because I’ve graduated one homeschooled kid and only have a middle schooler at the table with me now, but I’m all about keeping things as simple as possible in our homeschool these days. I just can’t bring myself to get excited about complicated lessons that require lots of planning and extra accommodations.
Thankfully, this homeschool music appreciation curriculum keeps it simple without compromising effectiveness. Instead of relying on a ton of extra components, the simple lesson flow helps me stay consistent with music appreciation. Note: Simple and easy aren’t the same. Truly, this is simple but it’s really well done.
I’ve not been great about being consistent with teaching music appreciation in the past because I get overwhelmed and frustrated when a curriculum is unnecessarily complicated, so this simple approach is a game changer for me.
Learn More about Music Appreciation: A Family Study from Beautiful Feet Books
Ready to learn more about Beautiful Feet Books and their Music Appreciation Curriculum? You can find it on their website along with sample pages and a downloadable scope and sequence.
You’ll also want to check out all of their curriculum offerings. You’ll find lots of fantastic options for homeschooling early elementary, middle school, and high school.
(Heads up: you can keep up with new releases and sales by subscribing to their emails. I’m one of their subscribers and I always look forward to opening their emails!)
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention some of our past Beautiful Feet Books curriculum favorites. We had wonderful experiences with them and I love talking about them.
- Early American History for Intermediate Grades
- Early American History for 7-9th Grade
- Ancient History Senior High
- Teaching Character for Intermediate Grades
- Holling C. Holling Geography Pack
In closing, I happily recommend Beautiful Feet Books’ Music Appreciation: A Family Study. If you’re looking for a simple but effective approach to music appreciation curriculum you can use with students of different ages, this is it.