Schoolhouse Crew Review Maestro Classics

Are you familiar with Maestro Classics? I wasn’t until recently. Music is not really my thing and classical music is a subject that I know absolutely nothing about. As a homeschool mom I don’t want my inabilities or lack of a subject to reflect my children’s education. I want them to be exposed to things that I didn’t experience as a child. When the review for Maestro Classics came available for review with Schoolhouse Crew Review I was excited to introduce my kids to classical music. I choose Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Casey at the Bat.

For Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel  the CD is $16.95 and Casey at the Bat  CD is also $16.98 you can also purchase the CD as a download also. Maestro classical music for children is attended for ages 6-12. Each CD comes with a 24 page activity booklet inside the case which has varies activities for the kids to do. You will be introduced to the composer, narrator, and producer. You will hear the story of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Casey and the Bat. The only way I can describe Maestro Classics is to think of stories being told within the music. 

How did we use Maestro Classics in our homeschool?  

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is a favorite book in our home. I started out first reading the book. The next day we just listened to the story on the CD and soaked it all in. We talked about the music and how the story sounded in music.

Over the next week in a half we listened to Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel in smaller sections and we did some of the activities in the booklet. My kids love this story and listened to the CD often while we worked on other subjects. My kids pulled out the instruments and made lots of music on their own. Not classical music but lots of fun, energetic, and very noisy music.

Casey at the Bat was a new story to us. I did know that it is actually a poem. 

First I read the poem to the kids and we discussed the poem. We listened to the CD in full while doing some of the included activities. My kids enjoyed the musical side of Casey at the Bat more than Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. This time we had the marching band come out in my kids. We played baseball or at least attempted to. Poor Little Man didn’t get good team mates with us girls. He's better off waiting for Daddy to play baseball.

I wasn’t sure what my kids would think of Maestro Classics at first. It was a good edition to our homeschool. They really enjoyed the music and I got to introduce them to something new.

My thoughts:

I think this is a wonderful resource to introduce to any homeschool. What a great way to have your kids well rounded in different subjects. It has been a delightful way to introduce my kids to the orchestra. We really loved our first exposure to the Maestro Classics collection.

My kids did really like it a lot so, I got to wondering how could I justify the cost in my homeschool budget? I think all of the Maestro Classics music would make a great unit study. They have some great titles to choose from. Not only that but there is a lot of available resources out there for unit studies that you can get for free or at a reasonable price to go along with Maestro Classics. If you out weight that then, the cost could be justified in my opinion as you could pull it all together and cover a whole array of subjects. That being said I might look into adding a few different titles to my budget and continue to have my children experience their education in way that I never did.

Here are the social media links for Maestro Classics:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaestroClassics
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/maestroclassics/

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