In my previous blog, we visited the wonderful website The Children's Group and learned about some awesome CDs for children. Today, we will learn about another amazing website which exposes kids to a whole other side of the spectrum in classical music such as the concepts of musical terminology, musical periods, and even musical composition. While many of the features on this website are for children in elementary school, there are some activities which are suitable for pre-schoolers.
This website can be found at: http://www.classicsforkids.com/ It is affiliated with Cincinatti Public Radio and provides an amazingly broad range of musical knowledge along with interactive activities for children! Once you get to this website, you will find six different categories on which you can click. The first of these is the On the radio link. After clicking this you will find other links which allow you to listen to actual radio programs of classical music, find schedules of various classical music radio stations, and gain access to some really fun and educational activity sheets for kids.
Next, is the link Composers. Here you will find information about many classical composers. You can search alphabetically, by country, or by musical period. There is also an interactive timeline chart showing the different composers in each century.
The third link is Games. This is, of course, my favorite aspect of this website!! The game Compose Your Own Music is tons of fun and both younger and older kids can play. You have to figure out how many beats make up the four that you need in 4/4 time and then you drag the different notes (quarter, half, whole) on to which line or space on the blank staff paper. Finally, when you have finished, it will play the song which you have composed back to you. Kids will love doing this!! Another great game here is the Note Name Game. In this game, there are several notes on either lines or spaces on the staff paper with a blank below it. You must decide what the name of the note is and put that letter in the space below. When you have finished, the combined names of the notes spell different words, such as "cab" or "ebb". It is a great way to help children identify the names of the notes in the scale!
More About Music is our next link. Here you can find more info about things like a musical dictionary, instruments in the orchestra, and instrument families. In the Special Features section, you can find more of this type of info such as what it is like to be an opera singer or a conductor. And you can also link to even more links regarding classical music for your child!
Last is the For Grown-ups link. In this section you will find information on books about music, tips for selecting a musical instrument for your child, choosing the best music teacher, and there are also lesson plans on different topics relating to classical music. There is even one about "Peter and the Wolf" by Prokofiev, which was featured in the previous blog.
This is truly an amazing website and I hope you have fun checking it out! Both you and your child will learn more about many different elements of classical music. And check back in a few days for hands-on activities that you can do with your child while exploring the world of classical music. See you then!!
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