Whether you are new to homeschooling due to Covid-19, you're an experienced homeschooler, or you simply want to add music education to your child's day, learn how to create a fun and educational at-home music curriculum.
Maestro Classics CDs/MP3s and Curriculum Guides
We might be biased, but we think that Maestro Classics is a fantastic resource for music education. Simply purchase one or two (or twelve) of our CDs or MP3s, and get access to tons of free online music learning resources, including curriculum guides, extra puzzles and games, home projects, free sheet music, and more. Plus each album comes with its own activity booklet.
Check out over a dozen award-winning albums from Maestro Classics, all with classical music, fun narrated stories, educational tracks about the music and/or the composer, sing-along tracks, and more. See all Maestro Classics albums here.
Each album has a corresponding curriculum guide with lessons in math, history, geography, science, language arts, music, and art. Check out the curriculum guides here.
Check out extra resources available on the Maestro Classics website, including extra puzzles and games, home projects, free sheet music, Montessori music lessons, and more. You can also take a look at over 40 music education articles written by our Executive Producer and Creative Director, Bonnie Ward Simon.
Classical MPR
Classical MPR, the classical music radio station operated by Minnesota Public Radio, has an incredible section on their website for young listeners. They have resources ranging from adorable and entertaining short videos explaining musical concepts or talking about composers, lesson plans relating to those videos, a classical music storytime, and more.
Videos with Curricula and Lesson Plans: Choose from lessons about pitch and tonality, rhythm and tempo, music history, improvisation, and more.
Classical Kids Storytime: Listen to Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast, The Nutcracker, and more.
Visit Classical 15, a page dedicated to helping parents give their kids at least 15 minutes of classical music every day. Listen to anything from lullabies to classical music story time to kids music lessons and more.
Classics for Kids
Classics for Kids is another great resource with the goal of introducing classical music to young kids. Learn about composers, download lesson plans, play interactive music games,
. They also have a podcast that airs every Saturday at 10am, and they have many of their past shows available online.
Learn about over a hundred composers and download fun activity sheets.
Learn about composers and their music with these extremely in-depth lesson plans. Each one has a guide for grades K-2 and grades 3-5. The lesson plans cover topics such as rhythm (tempo and patterns), melody, form, expression, and tone color/timbre, and includes skills like singing, moving, listening, performing, evaluating, creating, and relating music to other subject areas such as history and literature. They are based on national and state standards.
Play some fun interactive music games! Choose from games to learn musical terms (after you study this musical dictionary), note names, how to read rhythms, and composer your own music.
Listen to the Classics for Kids Podcast every Saturday at 10am eastern time. Listen to past podcast shows here.
Sign your child up for online music lessons
Before Covid-19 there were a few music schools that specialized in online music lessons. Now almost everyone offers them! If the student and the teacher have a decent camera and a good internet connection, online lessons can really a be great and seamless alternative to in-person lessons. Some pros of online lessons are:
You can choose any music school in the country (or maybe even the world!) from which to take lessons.
You can have a more flexible schedule.
Commuting time and distance is not an issue for the student or for the teacher.
Cost - online lessons tend to be offered at a lower price than in-person lessons.
With the teacher's permission, you can record the lesson and refer back to it later.
The Smith School of Music is a New York City based after-school music program now offering online lessons to students of all ages and abilities all across the country.
Other reputable online music schools:
Music learning apps
