A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers Review

From the website:
This course provides a close-up look at famous composers, their music, and their times, with special attention to character traits and Christian testimony (or lack thereof). Even the musically challenged will enjoy this course! It’s perfect for grades 4–8 but is easily adaptable for younger and older students. Minimal teacher prep will return maximum enjoyment!

I was thrilled when I found out that we would be given the opportunity to review A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers by Bright Ideas Press.  I had wanted to add music instruction into our school day, but I never really got around to doing it.  I think part of that was that I didn’t have any type of routine in place, and I didn’t really know where to begin.

A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers makes the study of music simple.  The lessons are easy to understand with little prep work involved.  After several weeks of doing the study, I chose to create a student book for Munchkin instead of having individual note taking pages and coloring sheets.  I also put the composer information cards on rings, so they would not get lost.

On day one, I would read the lesson to Munchkin.  She would listen and take notes on the provided worksheet.  (Love this feature — Munchkin is learning how to take notes!)  On day two, Munchkin would fill out the composer information card.  Usually, we would listen to a piece of work by the composer as well.  On day three, we would listen to music by the composer while Munchkin colored the coloring page for that composer.  Some weeks, we play games and other weeks, we do more research on the composers.  Sometimes, we do both.

This study really has been the spring board to add more music into our homeschool day.  Munchkin has started to take a genuine interest into music at a whole new level.  When we’re watching movies or television, she will pick out songs written by composers that we have studied.  When we’re studying a new composer, I can watch her face light up as she recognizes certain songs.  She’s truly enjoying learning about these great composers and their music.

We received the electronic version of A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers.  I personally prefer the cd (electronic) version of this product as it makes it easy to print out the student pages, composer cards, coloring pages…  The cd version is available for $29.95.  I obviously printed out a copy and had it spiral bound for easier day-to-day use.  Bright Ideas Press now offers this product in the print form for $34.95.  You can view sample pages here.