Jump to content

Menu

I think I have underestimated the power of music


sassenach
 Share

Recommended Posts

Themes to Remember -- Intros the main "theme" of a number of classical pieces with just enough lyrics to help you remember what it is and who wrote it... a big favorite here...

 

Singing Science Records (you have to burn these to a disc yourself -- our favorite is the space songs)

 

Veritas Press history CDs (we use these with the cards, and it's great for helping to cement a timeline in the kids' heads)

 

Classical Conversations memory CDs... I like these for the history sentence songs. They have helped the kids remember the specifics of who did what when after we study them in other contexts...

 

Tunes That Teach: American History This one is really fantastic... Catchy songs, variety of styles, a reasonable amount of information and good production values... (There are other TTT titles, but they didn't appeal to me, so I haven't tried 'em.)

 

Schoolhouse Rock is obviously beloved by many people. I've never paid much attention to it though, lol...

 

This may sound strange, but if you do Latin, I think the Lingua Angelica CD is a marvelous supplement. You don't even need to do the translation course or anything -- just enjoy the CD! Though I think buying the songbook is useful for helping you to know what they're saying...

 

The Lyric Language CDs are fairly cute bilingual exposure to a second language.

 

My little one is doing Song School Latin this year, and enjoying the songs with that.

 

...

 

One thing I'll warn against. I've hated everything I've gotten from Twin Sisters publications. I ended up with a ton of things from them a few years ago, including science, foreign language, "classical" music... It wasn't pleasant, the accents in the foreign language songs were terrible... Blech.

 

Oh, and Jami posted the other day that her kids are loving the First Language Lessons CD. I don't have that one, so I can't comment...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My favorite resource is Sing and Learn

 

We have used, learned and loved many of their products.

Troxel's Geography Songs and States and Capitals we still sing for fun in the car.

 

Lyrical Life Science dh and and I think is brilliant and it is pretty funny having a 5 year old sing about deoxyribonucleic acid. :)

 

 

Life has never been the same since Skip Count Kids Bible Heroes

 

The Classical Kids series absolutely never gets old.

 

School House Rock is required fun around here.

 

Opera for Kids was a revelation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you import the Singing Science Songs one by one into Itunes first--and then burn them all together? Is there any way to input them as a group?

 

 

I don't use itunes or own an ipod - I think I downloaded a free version of RealPlayer. I just downloaded them into the My Music folder in My Documents, then RealPlayer (or I'm assuming itunes or whatever program you're using) organizes them for me. Then I burned them to a CD - well, three, actually.

 

I love those Singing Science songs!

 

I also love Tickle Tune Typhoon, which also has really, really wonderful science songs, but unfortunately is not free. I bought it from Music for Little People.

 

The other stuff we love has already been mentioned here - I have Lyrical Life Science (though I prefer the other two above), Schoolhouse Rock, Classical Kids, MathUSee Skip counting CD, Opera for Kids (and the Classical Child at the Opera and Beethoven's Wig) - I have auditory kids, and if music can be added in any way to what we're doing, we do it.

 

We also always listen to music from the time period/culture we're studying. It adds so much!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any beginner's math tunes that won't make me want to poke my ears out with knitting needles?

 

I quite like Judy and David.

 

http://judyanddavid.com/

 

 

They are Canadian, though, so you may have trouble finding their stuff. I hope not, it really is quite listenable (and enjoyable!)

 

The developed their math CD's in consultation with the math curriculum of Ontario. It's called MathJam and there are samples you can listen too...I don't think you'll need your knitting needles....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Classical Kids cds - they take a story featuring a composer and overlay segments of his songs. My DS5 especially loves them and can identify pieces by Bach, Vivaldi, and Beetoven because of them. Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery is my favorite, but there are several others.

 

Also, Counting Sheep, a skip counting tape, is fairly good - we find oueselves singing several of the songs over and over.

 

Enjoy! We are always listening to music here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We like Beethoven's Wig 1,2, & hopefully 3, just for fun ad learning classical themes. Schoolhouse Rock is a favorite. The Phonics people have Math songs in Hooked on Math. At least they do in the Multiplication pack we borrowed from our library. I didn't like the songs quite as much as Schoolhouse rock but they were still very good.

Depending on how forgiving your ear is, Risas Y Sonrisas is working well for us for beginning Spanish. The production quality is not great (somedays I want to rerecord the instruments and vocals in GarageBand and send them in to the author as possible replacements, then I realize I have higher priorities right now*...) and I have to forgive some tone/pitch issues but overall it's a winner for us, say, 4 out of 5 stars, due also to its methodology and illustrated book that is part of the package. The singer uses a low range sometimes but I assume that means kids are supposed to sing an octave higher. I will use the higher octave in those cases to help my son sing along.

thanks for other suggestions everyone!

Are there any samples of the classical conversations anywhere on the web? I don't find any at their store but in case I'm overlooking something I thought I'd ask.

- Jill in ND

* I also know that other people might not like _my_ voice or instrumentation picks - you can't please everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...