Zeezok Music Appreciation Curriculum Review {& Giveaway}

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the curriculum in exchange for an honest review. I was compensated for my time invested in comprehensively experiencing the curriculum with our children. All opinions in the review are my own, period.

Zeezok Music Appreciation Curriculum Review {& Giveaway}

In my decade of homeschooling, I have always dreamed of a comprehensive music curriculum to teach music appreciation in our homeschool. I grew up in a very musical family. As a matter of fact, my uncle was the lead guitarist for the late blues legend Etta James for nearly 30 years. My grandmother was a singer in Japan; my mother sings and plays the piano and guitar; and I’ve always been a vocalist and play many instruments myself. Needless to say, my standards for a music curriculum are coming from a different place than most. I’ve tried many different products on the market, and for me, none of them fit them bill.

Until now.

Zeezok’s music appreciation curriculum is everything I have been desiring from a music curriculum and more! From the period music of each composer to the wonderful living history book perspective of each composer, this curriculum is jam packed with information that will keep your homeschool student(s) wanting more!

Today I am sharing our review of Handel, which is a part of the Zeezok’s Music Appreciation Book 1 Collection.

What You Can Expect in Zeezok’s Book 1 Collection

With this amazing comprehensive collection, you will receive:

• Student Activity Book
• 5 Full Music Discs
• Lapbook Disc
• 7 Composer Biographies: Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini, and Schubert

Studying George Handel in Our Homeschool

Although our children have been enjoying every aspect of this curriculum, I can’t lie that they were particularly excited to study Handel. Why? Because we spent 3 years living in Germany, and while living there we were able to visit Handel’s hometown of Halle. Our two youngest students (sons ages 5 and 7) remembered walking around the streets of Halle, seeing Handel’s birth home, and seeing the monument dedicated to Handel.

In our study of Handel, the children were fascinated by every aspect of the unit and never lost interest due to the hands-on approach of the curriculum. Zeezok has done a wonderful job of incorporating lots of different ways for your student(s) to learn music appreciation regardless of their learning style. Zeezok has managed to get in a little of everything for each composer study. You can expect your children to be intrigued by this curriculum with the following hands-on applications:

• geography lessons
• history lessons
• recipes
• instrument studies
• music vocabulary
• handwriting
• musical facts of the Classical period
• timelines
• character trait studies

Because our family takes a very literature-rich approach to our homeschooling, we adored reading Handel’s living history biography. This book really brought to life the background and life story of Handel, allowing the children to really feel like they are experiencing the history of his life. And as I mentioned earlier, it made it that much more exciting since they had actually visited the places referenced in the book that took place in Handel’s hometown of Halle, Germany.

The boys also really enjoyed the “Character Qualities” section in the student activity book. This section was of particular interest to them. Because they really seek to be men of integrity (like their daddy), these positive character attributes resonated with them well. As a matter of fact, the “Character Qualities” section led to many impromptu Bible studies each day we read them. As a Christian homeschooling family, we really appreciated this aspect of the Zeezok curriculum.

Our sons also really enjoyed listening to the various pieces of music that Handel composed. It was really fun seeing their reaction to the different types of pieces he composed. One of the mornings we listened to Handel’s Messiah and the boys started break dancing to it. Ha! I don’t think Handel envisioned that type of dancing to his masterpiece, but hey, I think he’d be proud of the emotion he evoked in my boys!

Who Is This Curriculum For?

This curriculum is aimed at elementary students in grades K-6. While I think that is a great range for this curriculum, I think that it could potentially span a grade or two higher (7th or 8th) depending on the student. Our 8th grade daughter would sit in from time to time, but unfortunately her schedule is jam packed this year so she didn’t have much time to spend doing this with us. However, the time she did sit in, she did enjoy what was being taught. She is a very gifted student (she is 12-year-old 8th grader), just to give you some idea of why I think this curriculum appeals to more than grades K-6.

Zeezok has also done a phenomenal job making sure that students with every learning style have something to grasp onto through the use of multi-sensory lesson plans (I mentioned this above in the detailed hands-on description). Did you know that Zeezok’s Music Appreciation curriculum also was written to meet all of the national benchmarks required for music appreciation for kindergarten through sixth grade? Yep, it’s true. So not only are you giving your children an amazing journey through music history, you’ll also be at or above national bench marks for music, which is wonderful considering many schools don’t even have music in them nowadays!

I also have to say that this curriculum is definitely for the homeschool parent. What do I mean? I say this because it is very well divided up into easy lesson plans by week. It lays it out in a way that is easy to understand for both parent and child. And due to the way it is broken up, there is a lot of flexibility, which is always an added bonus!

Where Can You Purchase Zeezok?

You can purchase Zeezok’s Music Appreciation for the Elementary Grades on their website.  Receive a 10% discount on all orders Feb. 17 to March 21 with coupon code: ihomeschool.

Be sure to connect with them on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Enter to Win Zeezok’s Music Appreciation Curriculum!

You can win Zeezok’s Music Appreciation Book 1 Collection!

If a customer purchases the set during the giveaway, and subsequently wins it, Zeezok will issue a refund of the purchase price.

• Prize shipped only to US mailing address.
• Enter Feb. 17, 1:00 AM to March 20, 11:59 PM.
• Winner will be chosen and notified Friday, March 21.

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