Music in Homeschool

This is pretty much just a bookmark for much, much later.

I would very much like to include music appreciation in our homeschool curriculum. I’d like the normal stuff to be in there – a little bit of music history, orchestral terms, classic music education, etc. – But I really want some unusual stuff in there too. For example:

• Classic Rock: If I ever do this for my kids, it won’t be for another 10 or more years (Aki is 5months.) So we’re looking at 2030s. Music from the 70’s and 80’s will be 60 years old and counting. That’s… OLD, and I have to think that they won’t get exposure to those eras of music accidentally. Plus, I have a potential resource on this. Tom Richards used to teach the history of classic rock in Vienna. He might be able to point me to some stuff.
• I’m pretty sure the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame has some educational resources that maaaybe could be useful.
• Musicals: I think you could easily do a unit on musicals. Phantom of the opera, obvs.
• Hamilton: in conjunction with Early american history. Great way to bring history to life, I think.

Helping Students Improve Their Writing

I’m finishing up my  last couple weeks of student teaching, and one thing is really standing out as a area in which I need to improve: instruction in writing. I’m seeing kids really struggle with writing – and not just kids, but teachers. Teachers that I’ve come into contact with do not have a sense of the what the progression from struggling student writer to confident, skillful student writer should look like. There seems to be very little awareness of a need for an ordered system of skills, arranged in order of priority, and how fundamental that are for the development of later, more advanced skills. I’m just beginning to poke around, looking for insight on the web, into how I can wrap my brain around this area.

My wife has an idea: look into homeschool curriculum. 1. they offer comprehensive systems which span multiple grades. They’re designed to take a student from a ground level all the way to complete mastery. 2. They’re created by experts on the learning process, and designed to be taught by complete novices. In theory, they’re as fool-proof as they can be.

Here’s an edutopia article that I think offers the beginnings of a solution. Focus on reading, and focus on feedback. Most importantly, it acknowledges that “writing is hard” and that becoming a good writer is “extraordinarily difficult.”

https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-ways-help-student-writers-improve

Tags and Catagories

Since I want to use blogging in my classroom, and since I am baffled by many of the finer points of blogging, including tags and categories, I found this article  from the “Elegant Themes” blog very helpful and I think students would too. It’s a basic primer that very clearly and simply describes their intended uses and how they differ. It skirts around the deeper implications, like SEO optimization without ignoring them or pretending they’re not important.