Zeezok (A REVIEW)

We had a great time exploring composers with Music Appreciation Book 2: for the Middle Grades from Zeezok Publishing. This curriculum is packed with a ton of musically inspired learning about some of the world's greatest musicians. While there are only 7 artists covered in this book there are months worth of lessons to cover giving a good scope of each musicians life.

Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades Activity book and guide.

We received all (but one that came as a pdf) of the physical books needed for Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades, including the readers that go along with each of the great artists. The books included:

• Music Appreciation for the Middle Grades Book 2 activity pages and guide
• Frederic Chopin--Early Years
• Frederic Chopin--Later Years
• The Young Brahms
• Stephen Foster and His Little Dog Tray
• The Story of Peter Tchaikovsky
• Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Suite (this is the one we received in a pdf file)
• Edward MacDowell and His Cabin in the Pines
• Adventures of Richard Wagner
• Robert Schumann and Mascot Ziff

These are all essential books to use with this curriculum. There are other things that are used such as a personal journal (created by the student), and online components that are accessed with QR codes as well. All of these things work together to make this a very interesting, well rounded, and fun study about great composers and musicians.

The individual readers for each individual musician. The picture on the computer is the one that we received as a pdf since the physical book wasn't available.

I used this curriculum for my new 6th grader. The first musician to be studied in the book is Frederic Chopin, so that is where we started. Each composer takes 4-5 weeks to study, and Frederic Chopin is a 5-week study so he is the only one we have studied so far for the review period. The reading and activities for Frederic Chopin include one or two chapters each week, and about 10 activities to do each week. Some activities include comprehension questions for each chapter, listening to music, character qualities, cooking, music lessons (learning about notes and music theory), lapbook making (if purchased too), and so much more.

The first composer to study: Frederic Chopin

For the reading, we did a combination of read-aloud and him reading by himself. These books are written a little bit differently than we're used to reading today. A little more classical in nature, and I had to help him through the comprehension questions with some prompting. I really like these books though. They have captivating stories.

He was reading on his own. He doesn't like having his picture taken, so he was hiding.

The student activity book is organized by week. All the questions and activities that are suggested for each week are easy to find and follow. The first activity for each week are the comprehension questions for the reading. There are lines and blanks for the answers to the questions. In fact, the whole book is meant to be written in like a workbook. Not everything has writing that needs to be done though. Some things are just meant to be read like the Character Qualities. There are a lot of cool things packed into this book!

I helped him through the comprehension questions, but he wrote his answers down.

Overall I really like this curriculum. There is a lot packed in it, and many things to explore. I look forward to continuing our composer studies this school year using this curriculum. There are so many different ways it could be used. I feel like we could use bits and pieces as we need them or we could use it all for a well rounded classical music study.

If you'd like to see what other crew members had to say about this curriculum you can click on the link below.