Want to know how to teach music in your homeschool? For several years now, our family has used the online homeschool music curriculum, Music in Our Homeschool! It has something for all ages, pre-k to high school, and even includes singing lessons, printables, a music membership, and more! Read on for some insight from the creator, Gena Mayo, on how to teach homeschool music appreciation and more!
🎉🎉🎉 Hey! There’s a giveaway at the bottom of this page for THREE music courses that you won’t want to miss! 🎉🎉🎉
A homeschool mom wants to provide the very best for her kids, but past the essentials of math, history, science, reading, and Bible, sometimes it’s hard to get to those other subjects she’d love to have her kids learn, especially if she doesn’t feel particularly skilled to teach it. That’s very true of music. But, you can do it! Learn how to teach music in your homeschool today.
Disclosure: *This post may include affiliate links. As an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Read the disclosures and terms for more information.
Ways to Teach Music in Your Homeschool
There are several categories of music to teach in your homeschool. Private music lessons, group music lessons, music theory, music appreciation (music history), composer study, and hymn study are some of the main ones. See below for some practical and easy ways to include some of these in your homeschool, even today!
Private and Group Music Lessons
Private and group music lessons, like piano or choir, are probably the most common thing we think of when we consider music for our kids. In some ways, it’s easy for homeschoolers to do this. We have more flexibility in our schedules, we can find private teachers to come to our homes during the school day, or perhaps we can find a choir or other musical group to join at a homeschool co-op.
But, on the other hand, it might be difficult. As we are often single-income homes, finding the money for private lessons might be a stretch. Or, there may not be enough time with all the other activities we are doing with our kids.
Here are a few options you may not have considered:
- Many teachers are now providing lessons through Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, etc.
- Find a younger teacher (we have even used teenagers) who will charge less.
- There are also video lessons available (and some are free on Youtube!). See Music in Our Homeschool for several of these options.
- Find a homeschool mom who can teach music and start up a new class at your co-op.
Pro tip: Tauna actually uses the membership option from Music in our Homeschool! It’s a fantastic resource that gives you access to so many music homeschool courses for pre-k through high school, monthly lesson calendars, live music lessons, and more. 🙌
Music Theory
Music theory is best taught along-side private or group music lessons, but to do extra practice at home, use an app or this fun and FREE printable pack! There are some really fun apps for learning note names and everything else music theory related.
Music Appreciation and Composer Study
I think music appreciation is the easiest way to teach homeschool music activities in your day. If you have a streaming service such as Spotify or Amazon Prime Music, you can simply use a ready-made playlist to learn about a particular music style or composer. Search “jazz” or “opera for kids” or “Bach” or “Rossini” and you’re ready to listen! These playlists are also available on Youtube.
Or, if you want something more organized, Music in Our Homeschool is a resource dedicated to bringing music appreciation online courses to your home and homeschool. See Learn.MusicinOurHomeschool.com for homeschool music appreciation courses for all ages (elementary through high school) and various topics such as “Music Appreciation of the Middle Ages thru Classical Era,” “Music Lessons for Holidays & Special Days,” and “Intro to Musicals.”
Hymn Study
If you may have already considered including hymn study in your homeschool, especially if you are a Charlotte Mason homeschooler. There are quite a number of hymn study curricula for you to choose from.
But, I’d love to tell you about “Great Hymns of the Faith,” because not only are you learning about the hymns, who wrote them, and why they were written, you can use the included videos to learn to sing in 4-part harmony. And there are devotionals written by some of the most encouraging homeschool moms out there, including Tauna Meyer!
Here are the 10 hymns included in the course:
- Amazing Grace
- Fairest Lord Jesus
- It is Well With My Soul
- A Mighty Fortress is our God
- Blessed Assurance
- Be Thou My Vision
- The Old Rugged Cross
- Holy Holy Holy
- Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
- What a Friend We Have in Jesus
The ten accompanying music lesson topics are:
- The Pentatonic Scale
- Hymn Tunes
- Hymn Meters
- Congregational Singing with a “first voice lesson” video
- Notation Software
- Celtic Harp
- Time Signatures
- The Organ
- Musical Quotations by Charles Ives
- Shape Notes
It’s truly a blessing for your family and homeschool!
GIVEAWAY ($171 value): 3 Music Courses for Your Homeschool!
Gena from Music in Our Homeschool is giving away 3 homeschool music courses from her online music curriculum, Music in Our Homeschool! One winner will receive all of the following:
Intro to Musicals for Elementary Students ($67) – Includes eleven lessons on eleven different musicals. Read about the story and background, watch video clips, work on one printable per lesson, take an online quiz, and explore links to outside sites with other materials to enrich your study.
The ten musicals are:
- Annie
- Seussical
- Cats
- James and the Giant Peach
- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- Mary Poppins
- Newsies
- Annie Get Your Gun
- The Music Man
- The Wizard of Oz
- Hamilton the Musical.
Learn Classical Music with Cartoons ($37 value) – In this fun and engaging course, you’ll find 37 separate composer studies with music to listen to — by cartoon! The cartoons range from the very vintage (1931!) to the very modern (Line Riders and other computer-generated graphics).
Every lesson also contains an optional movement activity to get the kids off the couch and moving their bodies to the music. Printables and online quizzes are available for each lesson as well!
Great Hymns of the Faith ($67 value) – Whether your purpose is to study hymns as part of your Charlotte Mason curriculum, morning basket time, to grow in your personal faith, family worship time, or simply as another genre for music appreciation, this is the course for you!
For each hymn you find:
- The Lyrics
- 4-5 Videos of various versions
- Information about the composer
- The Story behind the song
- PDF of all verses in 4-part harmony
- Videos of Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass so you can learn the parts and sing it in 4-part harmony with your family, co-op, or other group (recorded by Gena and her oldest son)
- A Music Lesson that relates to each hymn
- Copywork of the lyrics
- An original coloring page for each hymn (designed by Gena’s oldest daughter)
- A devotional that mom or dad can read to the family that relates to the hymn
- A Bible Study to do along-side learning the hymn. The Scripture is provided in three Bible versions, as well as a variety of Bible Study methods to choose from.
ENTER TO WIN BELOW!
Enter below! Must be 18 years of age or older to enter. Giveaway ends August 22nd at 11:59pm PST. Vendors are responsible for delivery of the prizes. Winner has 48 hours to claim prize before another winner is chosen.
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Gena Mayo is a homeschool mom of 8 and music teacher for more than 20 years. She loves encouraging and equipping other homeschool moms to include music in their homeschools. Learn about resources, download freebies, and enter giveaways at Music in Our Homeschool. Find easy-to-use online courses at Learn.MusicinOurHomeschool.com. She’d love to connect with you on Instagram and the Music in Our Homeschool Facebook group.
by Stephanie, The Multi Taskin' Mom
This Post Has 16 Comments
Andrea Wilson
21 Aug 2018I love the idea of incorporating hymn study into our homeschool….and these tools would make it easy to do! Thanks.
Magda
21 Aug 2018I grew up in a musical household. I am always looking for ways to include music studies into our homeschool life.
Judith Martinez
28 Aug 2018I love the looks of the hymn study.
Wendy
30 Aug 2018I have purchased Gena’s products before and loved them, it would be great to add more to. My homeschool library!
Lisa
8 Aug 2022My daughter loves the videos she finds, and I love that I don’t have to do the work of finding them.
Amy V.
8 Aug 2022Wow, thank you for this opportunity! We have never used this resource but would love it!
Danielle Brownrigg
8 Aug 2022My kids are currently obsessed with Newsies! I think they would love learning more and taking the time to learn about some other musicals!
machele
8 Aug 2022These would be wonderful resources to win and motivate the kids into fun learning, Thank you for your kindness!
Jairy Negron
8 Aug 2022Such great info! My teen wants to learn piano this year! Hoping to get him started right.
Marisca D.
8 Aug 2022I hope to add a hymn study in our homeschool. I think my daughter would enjoy it a lot.
Kristy Lloyd
8 Aug 2022My children love music, each in their own way. These courses would allow each them to pursue their interests and expand their repertoire.
Karlee Waddington
9 Aug 2022I absolutely love Music in Our Homeschool! Winning this would be such a blessing!
Mira
9 Aug 2022The music curriculum seems to be fantastic no-prep, click-and-go lessons on the calendar for each day of the month
Leslie
11 Aug 2022Thank you!
Rachel
18 Aug 2022The hymn study looks perfect for us!
Serena
20 Aug 2022My kids would enjoy any of the instrument instruction.