59: How to Use Living Books to Teach Music in Your Homeschool (a Charlotte Mason Inspired idea!)

Welcome to Episode 59 of the Music in Our Homeschool podcast, "How to Use Living Books to Teach Music in the Homeschool." Dive into a creative approach to music education with host Gena Mayo, a seasoned music teacher and homeschooling mom of eight. In this episode, Gena shares insightful strategies for incorporating living books—a concept championed by educator Charlotte Mason—into your homeschool music curriculum.

Discover the meaning of living books and how they differ from standard textbooks. These beautifully written narratives are known for engaging both the mind and heart, making them the perfect tool for young learners. Gena guides you through five categories of living books ideal for teaching music: composers, styles or genres, instruments, songs, and specific musical pieces.

Explore a variety of recommended books that bring music education to life. From biographies of legendary composers like Schubert, Haydn, and Mozart to fun introductions to musical styles and instruments. Gena also highlights engaging picture books that teach songs and delve into specific musical pieces like "Peter and the Wolf" and "The Nutcracker."

Whether you're a seasoned homeschooler or new to the education style, this episode provides practical tips on integrating music basics through storytelling. Perfect for parents seeking affordable, engaging, and quality music lessons, Gena's insights encourage a love for music in learners of all ages. Don't miss this chance to enrich your homeschool experience with living books that transform music learning into an exciting journey.

Visit musicinourhomeschool.com and Ichoosejoy.org for more resources and connect with Gena Mayo for additional guidance.

Find links to all resources mentioned in this episode here: https://musicinourhomeschool.com/use-living-books-to-teach-music/

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Transcript

59: How to Use Living Books to Teach Music in the Homeschool

[00:00:00] Hi friends, it's Gena Mayo from Music in Our Homeschool, and today I'm going to be talking to you about how to use living books to teach music in your homeschool. If you know me, you know that I am a music teacher and a homeschool mom. I have eight children four have graduated from my homeschool and two have graduated from college now.

So, I still have four at home that I'm homeschooling and it is so exciting. Such an exciting time. More homeschoolers entering the wonderful world of homeschooling all the time. And I want to talk to you about a subject that I know that some people have a difficult time teaching and that is music.

But there's such an easy way to do it. There's lots of easy ways to do it. But one of the most fun and easy ways is to use living books. So I just want to give you a little background story and then I'm going to explain exactly what a living book is in case you are [00:01:00] unfamiliar with that term. 

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 Gina Mayo, homeschooling mom of eight, a music teacher for over 30 years.

I started off my music teaching career as a junior high choir director.

And then after three years I switched over and started teaching elementary music. And I love that job. It was at a brand new school two new elementary schools opened up in that district that year. So I talked back and forth with the brand new music teacher at the other elementary school in my district and we shared ideas and things.

We were both new to teaching elementary music. And one of the things that the district encouraged us to do that year was to write grant applications to see if we can get some [00:02:00] bigger-expense items for our classrooms. So this other music teacher and I both did that and we both won a grant. I won a set of computers for my classroom because I wanted to use some computer instruction.

Now this was way back in 1990 like 6. I think it was maybe 97. I can't remember exactly, but the early, the late 90s. So computers were not quite as common in all the classrooms, especially not in elementary music classroom. But I knew there were some great things to use them for: listening to music examples and music games and doing music notation.

And so anyway, that was my grant application. But the other music teacher in my district decided to write a grant to get a set of picture books for her classroom. And I thought, picture books for music. What is [00:03:00] she doing? So I talked to her and I learned all kinds of great ways to use picture books in a music classroom. And those are some of the things I want to share with you today. 

The first time I heard the word living book, I had to learn what that meant. And it is actually a term described by Charlotte Mason, who was an educator from England in the late 1800s. And she said that she wanted her students to read living books, which are not dry textbooks, boring books, but they're full of life. They engage the listener or the reader and they're exciting. 

Typically, living books are written by one author and they are sometimes telling a story in order to teach the subject, . Biographies are definitely the easiest to understand because biographies are almost always [00:04:00] telling a story to teach the person about a person, but you can do it with a science book, maybe follow a little mouse through his journey of the day and you're learning about mouse behavior.

So Charlotte Mason really wanted her students to use living books in their education. And a lot of homeschoolers do that now. We want to use, especially in teaching history, living books, exciting real stories of the past that engage the learner in understanding and really getting excited about history.

But we can do that for music too. There are two books about the Charlotte Mason Method that I would recommend if you are interested in learning more about her and her techniques. One is For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaefer McCauley, and the other is The Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola and both of these have [00:05:00] sections on music in them as well. So these ladies don't just talk about using Living books for music. There's some other ways to do it too, but that's my focus for the rest of today. 

Okay, so we talked about what is a living book and here is a great definition by a lady named Becky Aniol and she says, "A living book is a whole narrative beautifully written by an authority with contagious delight in his or her subject, which engages both the mind and the heart, capturing the imagination and inspiring interest in the subject, igniting a sense of virtue worthy of imitation, and compellingly inviting the reader, both young and old, to read on and read again." So here we go with some ideas for using living books in your music time and your in your homeschool.

There are five [00:06:00] different categories of types of living books you can use for music. One is composers, two is styles or genres. Three, instruments. Four, songs. And five is to teach about specific musical pieces. So I'm going to show you some examples and, give you some ideas of some of my favorites.

First is composers. There are a set of books about composers reprinted by Zeezok Publishing that are really fun. These are older written books and these are more in a narrative style. They do have a few illustrations, but mostly it's more like a chapter book. Another thing that's neat in these is they have some music written so you can either It says track 17, so you can either get the audio that goes with it, or you can just look this up on YouTube, or if you play an instrument, you can play it yourself, or have your student, your child.

But there are [00:07:00] quite a few of these with different composers that have been reprinted. So this one's Schubert. Here's Haydn. Here's Mozart, and I think I have a few more in this stack, but I'll just show these for now. So these are great to read, and these are longer books that would take a little bit more time.

There are tons of shorter picture books about composers that you can find in the library. So, like, much shorter. See, just a few words on each page, lots of pictures. That tell about the composer and sometimes have some really fun, photographs of like the music written by Bach. Here is a letter written by Bach that you have a photograph of. It will show you some things in their house. So these are great books to engage the imagination and connect history to [00:08:00] music. Here is a picture book by Gershwin. This is another wonderful series called the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers. I think all of these are written by Mike Venezia. There's his name right there. So I'll show you what this looks like inside. So again not as many words on each page, lots of pictures, really fun to read. A lot of the Venezia ones are fun because they include cartoon illustrations. There's a whole set of these on artists as well as composers. 

And I'll just show you a few more. Here's one about Frédéric Chopin. This one is a shorter book. And then a longer one on Louis Armstrong, much longer. So if you have a, maybe a middle or high school student who wants to do some type of report, you [00:09:00] can also find living books on composers for the older students. Here's another Mike Venezia book on Bernstein. I'll just flip through a few more of these. I have tons of picture books on composers. So many of them. Here's one more that is one of those Zeezok Opal Wheeler books. And here's one on Tchaikovsky, on, Scott Joplin, ragtime musician, and Franz Schubert. 

Here is one that is a set of composers. So it's not just the one single composer like all those that I just showed you. But this one has just a couple pages on each composer. So you're getting a wide variety. So you can find these kinds of books as well. This one's called Lives of the Musicians. All right, so that is the first category. [00:10:00] Using Picture books, living books to teach about composers. 

Now, let's talk about styles or genres. Here's one book that I really like that has a variety of styles or genres. So you could just Use this to understand what style or genre means. This one's called Music Is. Now before I open it, I want to tell you that this book opens really wide, like I could spread it across this entire room. So when I open it, it's probably going to start to fall apart. Okay, so here, if you're opening it this direction, you get a different genre on each page. Classical, Latin, Jazz, Country,

Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Rock and Roll, Rhythm and Blues, [00:11:00] Electronica, pop, and then you get to the end and what you can do It's a supplemental music. You can open it up the other direction and it gives you examples of music. So I'm just going to try to open it without it falling completely down. Ah! It is falling. So this is a really fun book. Music is that I love to look at and use with my students.

Okay. So, to teach about genres and different musical styles. Now, specifically, if you wanted to teach say, just jazz, you could find tons of books about that, or just opera. We have some that you can find in the library. 

These kinds of books I love if you're teaching about hymns. So, that genre, that style, you can read hymn stories, there are lots of these types of books as well. Here are two [00:12:00] versions that I have. So, read the story behind the hymn, and that is really awesome when you're learning a hymn. 

Here's a great book written by Diana Waring. She has three in this series, Experience History Through Music, and these are specifically about folk songs. Now, folk songs has a wide variety of the definition. Sometimes it is a music that is written by a composer, not even really a composer, by just a regular everyday person and we don't know who they are. It was probably a mom making up a lullaby for her child or a young man making up a love song to woo the woman he wanted to marry. Or maybe it was a work song, sailors on a ship or men working on the railroad.

It could be the elders of a town wanting to teach the history to the young people in their town. So they wrote a song. So those are what [00:13:00] folk songs are, and Diana collected some of these for this book. Some of these do have composers. But a lot of them don't. So here's just a couple that you can use. And these are great when you're studying history, like American history, to use the songs that go along with them here's Yankee Doodle. Oop, I just dropped the CD. So this comes with a CD. The Erie Canal. That's a great song. Oh Susanna. Talking about moving west. Here's another one about moving west. Sweet Betsy from Pike. All Night, All Day. Here's Old Dan Tucker. Wade in the Water. Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier. A lot of these relate to the wars as well. When Johnny comes marching home. Shenandoah. So there's one I was talking about. A Sailor Song. Get along little dogies. It's a cowboy song. So they would sing to their cattle at night to calm them down. Drill [00:14:00] you tarriers, drill another work song that the men would sing. Polly Wolly Doodle, She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain. So these books are great for folk songs and connecting them with history. 

I also want to show you a great book that I got a long time ago. I'm sure you can find lots of these kinds at the library as well. So this one's called From Sea to Shining Sea. And this is a collection, it says, A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs. So again, you will find a variety of songs in here as well as stories that go through different time periods of American history.

So great. I love those. So we've talked about books for composers and for styles and genres, and now let's talk about instruments. Again, you can find lots of books that talk about instruments. This one's one of my favorites, The Story of the Orchestra. It comes with a CD right there. And in this [00:15:00] book, it divides it up the beginning actually is talking about some composers and they divided it by musical era, like the Baroque period is first, so they've got Vivaldi and Bach, and then it talks about different instruments of the orchestra, like the string section.

It'll give you an overview and then it'll go by instrument by instrument, such as violin. It includes music to listen to right here. It tells you different things about the instrument and the different composers that wrote for it. Sometimes it's different, famous people who play it. So that is a great book. 

And you can even just get a book from the library that's about a specific instrument. If you're just studying the saxophone or the cello, or a whole section like the brass section or the percussion section. So look for books like that and you can use those as you're learning [00:16:00] about music. 

The fourth category is songs. So I used to when, I was putting my little ones down for naps or before bed. I always read to them. I loved that was part of our time. I would sit on a rocking chair and read to them before I would put them down, became part of our ritual before bed or before nap time. And one of my favorite types of books to read to them were books that I could Sing the songs that were in them.

This one's a little set of nursery rhymes. So not all of these actually have tunes that go with them. Like Mary, Mary, quite contrary, but even just chant, chants like that. Poetry rhymes are great type of music to say to your children. But some of these actually do have songs that go with them. So I would sing. Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea. Oranges [00:17:00] and lemons say the bells of St. Clements. So I would sing these to my children before I put them to bed. Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. So those are really fun to do. 

Some books are entire songs, such as The Little Drummer Boy. So you can go, they often even have the music in the back, but you can go page by page and sing, I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum. I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum. So you're reading through the book, but you're singing the song to them. 

Here's one of my favorites. It's totally falling apart. I read it so many times. There once was a man named Michael Finnegan. He bought a car and hopped right in again. Drove it off and took a spin again. Went to visit all his kin again. Jolly Michael Finnegan begin again. [00:18:00] So, very cute. There's a set of these adapted by Marianne Hoberman, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott that are so cute. Here's a couple, Miss Mary Mack, the eensy weensy spider I know a lady who swallowed a fly, skipped to my loo, the lady with the alligator purse. So look for these in the library. Such whimsical, fun illustrations that go with the songs. 

Here's another really cute one, Hush Little Baby. So I could sing the lullaby, Hush little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna show you a hummingbird. So very cute. 

That is the fourth category, is to actually use living books that tell a song through the story And then the last category is to teach about specific musical pieces. I have two examples here to show you, but I have noticed that they [00:19:00] keep making more and more of these.

So, if there's a great piece of music, just do a search and see if there's a living book, a picture book for it that's been made. But the first one I want to show you is Peter and the Wolf, which is a really neat piece of music because it was written by Prokofiev and he actually wrote a narration, a story that goes with the music. As they're playing through the music, there's words that go through it to tell the story of Peter and the Wolf. This one includes some of the words that goes with the music But you would want to read the story while you're listening to it as well. So that one is Peter and the Wolf. There's lots of different versions, But this particular one is one of my favorites pictures by George Mueller. 

 And then the last one I wanted to show you was The Nutcracker. Another one that you can find lots of different versions. This one [00:20:00] I lost the cover for, but the Nutcracker Ballet. So you can tell the story of the nutcracker and play the music while you're reading the book with it. 

I hope that has given you some ideas of how simple. You can add some music education to your homeschool by using living books, by using picture books, biographies and different books to teach about styles, instruments, and songs and musical pieces. 

If you have a question for me, you may reach out Gena at musicinourhomeschool. com and Gena with an E and I'll be happy to answer any questions or just reach out any other way you would like to through social media or my websites musicinourhomeschool. com and ichoosejoy. org. It's been a pleasure speaking with you today. Bye bye. 

Find links to all resources mentioned in this episode here: https://musicinourhomeschool.com/use-living-books-to-teach-music/