The Exciting Origin Story of Music in Our Homeschool E7
[00:00:00] It was the summer of 2014 and I had just decided to join a brand new co-op where all the students in kindergarten through 12th grade would be studying the same history curriculum covering the 20th century. As I looked through the curriculum I said to myself, these kids need to learn something about the music of the 20th century along with the other history.
And that was the origin of Music in Our Homeschool, although I didn't know it at the time.
If you are a homeschooler looking for ways to easily and affordably include a quality music education in your homeschool, you've come to the right place. This is the Music in Our Homeschool podcast. I'm Gena Mayo, homeschooling mom of eight and music teacher for over 30 years.
I started going through the curriculum guide week by week and started writing down which composer, style, or genre would fit for the week, which was going through the history chronologically. Then I did some research for the [00:01:00] lesson to teach the students about that particular composer or style of music.
I chose some music to actually listen to as well. Many of the songs or pieces had videos on YouTube of orchestras playing, singers, or bands, and I loved using these videos because the students would be much more involved watching the musicians performing as opposed to just listening to the music. For the youngest students, I found some coloring pages of an instrument or something else related to the lesson for them to color while listening and for older students, I gave them a composer sheet to write the composer's name, dates, country, most famous compositions, and some other interesting facts. They also had critique sheets to fill out while listening to the music where they could write about the instrumentation, the mood, tonality, and some of the other factors, including whether they would actually like to learn to play or [00:02:00] sing that piece themselves.
After the school year, I took all my lessons and created an ebook with them and started selling it through my homeschool website I Choose Joy, found at ichoosejoy.org, which I had actually started writing way back in 2005 to talk about homeschooling and family, homemaking. And the next year my homeschool co-op did ancient history, which actually doesn't have any music history to study.
But I did write the curriculum for the following two years to complete the music history set. By that point, 20th Century Music Appreciation, the curriculum ebook I had created, was selling so well on both my website and Teachers Pay Teachers that I decided to start the Music in Our Homeschool website and the Learn.MusicinOurHomeschool.Com online course site. Transforming the ebook curriculum to an [00:03:00] online course platform made the curriculum even more valuable and user friendly because now it was just click and go. Anytime a video was deleted from YouTube, for example, I could easily go in and replace it in my course with a different video and that made the course version always up to date.
Then I got inspired to write all kinds of other types of courses for all ages. I created a course for preschoolers called Ten Songs All Preschoolers Should Know that has fun songs as well as printables for coloring and cutting and tracing. Then there were a number of courses for elementary students such as 15-Minute Music Lessons, and Intro to Musicals and Music Lessons for Holidays and Special Days.
As the years went by, I would continue to create new courses every few months, sometimes along with speaking engagements I did for various summits or workshops. Finally, by the fall of 2019, [00:04:00] I had enough courses that I decided to create a membership so that all the members could have access to almost all of the courses I had created and then they would be able to pick and choose lessons to do from various ones to fit their needs.
One of my most favorite things to do for the Music in Our Homeschool Plus members is to teach a brand new live music appreciation lesson every single month. These usually start with a composer and then I'll teach about him or her and find a a musical concept that's related. I always create a printable pack of notebooking, coloring, and activity pages, as well as a Spotify playlist to go along with the live video lesson, which is recorded for members to watch in the future at their convenience In the summer of 2023, I made an agreement with Karri Gregor, the creator of KinderBach, the amazing beginning piano and music theory program for preschoolers. She gave Music in Our [00:05:00] Homeschool the exclusive right to sell the digital online course version of KinderBach. And it's been extremely successful.
I'm so excited for this new generation of homeschoolers to get to participate and learn from KinderBach. Now, as I look to the future of Music in Our Homeschool, I have plans to make it even more accessible and user friendly for homeschool families. When the membership launches again in May of 2024, we will have three tiers to choose from.
I'm adding a community group to it and art lessons. Stay tuned for more details coming soon. But I always want to continue asking you, what do you need from Music in Our Homeschool? How can we serve you better? Please reach out and let me know.
It would also mean so much to me if you'd follow or subscribe to the podcast, leave a five star review if you like it, and a comment too.
Until [00:06:00] next time, keep the music alive.
Find all links to resources mentioned in the episode here: https://MusicinOurHomeschool.com/originstory