Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades Review

Zeezok Publishing has a wonderful middle school curriculum for teaching music appreciation with Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades.

Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades is intended for grades 5^th – 8^th grade. It also meets the national standards requirements for music appreciation if you follow the curriculum and do the required activities. This is the second book in the series. You can read about the first one that is geared for elementary grades from a review when we used it a few years back.  

Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades includes:

Student Workbook

Frederick Chopin, the Early Years

Frederick Chopin, the Later Years

Robert Schumann and the Mascot Ziff

Robert Wagner, the Adventures of Robert Wagner

Stephen Foster and His Little Dog Tray

Johannes Brahms, the Young Brahms

Peter Tchaikovsky, the Story of Peter Tchaikovsky

Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Ballet

Edward MacDowell and His Cabin in the Pines

You can also purchase a lapbook and coloring books to use with this set.

Student Workbook

The Student Work is a softbound book with 307 perforated pages and also has 3-holed punched to put into a 3-ring binder if you wanted too. It has all your activities for each of the composers. Each composer has four weeks of studies and activities. Chopin has five weeks. This is a complete year that you could easily add music lessons to make this into a full high school credit.

Each composer has a weekly outline with clear instructions of what needs to be completed.

The Student Workbook is also the teacher guide. At the beginning of each composer it has a weekly schedule that includes what you will read in the reader and all the activities that need to be completed during the week. It has the answers to each of the questions at the end of each composer. The book is colored tabbed so you can find the composers quickly.

Completed comprehensive Questions worksheet

A variety of activities as you can see in this almost complete page.

Another completed student worksheet

The activities in the Student Workbook are a mixture of activities from comprehension questions, multiply choice, matching, fills in the blank, true false questions, quizzes, and several exercises like naming the musical notes, learn how to listen, and more. Each composer has sections like Tidbits of Interest, Character Qualities, Components of Music, Basic Music Theory, and more. 

There is a plethora of information throughout from writing out your family tree, recipes, and finding out about the world during the composer’s lifetime.

Another neat feature is the use of the website, app, or QR app to listen to the composers and go to videos, or other interesting information. 

QR Codes to scan for the music of each composer is provided in the book or online,

A photo of the music being played on my phone

We used the QR codes to listen to the composer’s music.  (The student book has some suggestions of what QR apps to use if you don’t already have on.) The links are not only about the music as we could see a map of certain places like Central Park. I liked this feature much better than the first book that used the CDs.

This took us to a map of Central Park

My son wanted to learn about American composers and we started with Edward MacDowell. One interesting place we learned about was the MacDowell Colony it was a little over 6 minutes long video talking about this community build on the original MacDowell farm in Peterboro, New Hampshire. It’s an artist retreat from music, writers, visual arts, and other artistic fields. We found this place intriguing and had to take a rabbit trail to learn more about it.

MacDowell Colony intrigued my son and me. We had to look up more information on this!

The reading books are a mixture of softbound and hardback books; we received one as an e-book. If you order it will be a physical book that you will receive.

The readers vary in length and lay out the life of each of the composers. All of the books have detailed black and white illustrations. Another feature in the readers is the sheet music of the composers.

How did I use Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades in my homeschool?

I used this with my 8^th grader who used the Music Appreciation: Book 1 for the Elementary Grades a few years ago.

A good sign when your son reads ahead a few chapters

   

My son looked over the books and wanted to learn about American composers first. I already knew this was an open and go curriculum that didn’t require any planning on my end. I read the first few pages and made sure my QR reader worked with the codes in the book and we were set to go.

We started with Edward MacDowell. My son has actually been very independent with this as I was out of town some. He decided to read the book while I was gone and afterwards we would tackle the Student Workbook together.

He had read 3 chapters in a few days. He told me that he looked at the Student Workbook before he read each chapter and decided that he felt confident enough to do the workbook alone. He downloaded a QR reader on his phone to complete the activities. He just didn’t do the quizzes and some of the comprehensive questions until I was home. That was a nice surprise for me when I came home. It also showed me that he must have liked it to read ahead and to work on the workbook himself. That wasn’t intended as I feel that to get the most out of this it should be parent led. However my son did awesome with doing this himself!

The Comprehensive Questions are challenging

Once I was all settled in he caught me up to speed on the book and we completed the Student Workbook portions that need my attention. From there we took turns reading out loud and worked on the Student Workbook together. We had a few rabbit trails like we wanted to learn more about the MacDowell Colony and looked up more information about it. We probably worked at more of an accelerated pace and completed a week in just 3 days since we were in summer school mode. Now that we are in school we will do this each day.

Starting on the next American Composer except, my son likes to look at the end of the story first!

He just started on Stephen Foster and His Little Dog Tray and we will continue working through this book and the activities. I was glad that we can do this one together. I love the folk stories and the songs like Swing Low, Oh! Susanna, and Go Down Moses. Afterwards we will start at the beginning of the Student Workbook and work our way through each of the composers the rest of the year.

My son has been learning how to play his keyboard the last several months and still playing his guitar. He is learning more music theory with this curriculum and with the keyboard lessons. Having these together I’m going to give him a high school credit for this course. This is a wonderful homeschool music program.

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I am only 1 of 60 who are reviewing Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades from Zeezok Publishing. Don’t forget to click on the graphic below to learn more.