Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Review and Giveaway: Great Musician Series-Frederic Chopin

My Mom was very good about instilling in me a love of classical music growing up. Many are the times I remember sitting around the table, listening to classical music for school. It didn't stop there though. We would have classical music on in the car, while we cooked, cleaned the house, while we fell asleep, and sometimes if I was very good, in the background while I was doing school! Naturally I wanted to pass that love of classical music along to my children.

I play the piano, and sometimes I will pick out fun little pieces that I know the boys will like, and will play the piano for them while they twirl, dance, and march around the living room!

This year we are studying Bach in school. I have been using the book Sebastian Bach, The Boy from Thuringia by Opal Wheeler to read out loud to them. It is part of the Great Musician Series. Both of my boys (ages 4 and 6) are listening intently to every chapter, and they can't wait to get to today's reading! Scattered throughout the book is found sheet music of songs Bach has written. Normally I would have stopped and played the songs on the piano, but both girls were sleeping, so we went to YouTube (I always have the boys turn around until I find the right song, because you never know what will pop up on YouTube!) and we listened and watched different pianists playing the music. They just loved it!

I was sent the Frederic Chopin set to review. There must be more information on Frederic Chopin than there is on Bach, because there are actually two books on Chopin, The Early Years, and the Later Years. The books are full of pictures on almost every page, helping to keep the little ones attention. The stories are interesting, it is not just dry facts.

Also included in this set is a study guide, which is an amazing help! The study guide shows maps of all the major cities Chopin visited, and has a timeline placing his life in history. Then it goes through each of the books chapter by chapter, providing questions for you to ask your child, character qualities that are found in the life of Chopin, and also gives you tidbits of interest, going into depth explaining the reasoning behind some of the things you read about. For example, it explains what a Mazurka is-a Polish country dance. I personally would not have remembered what a mazurka is, so this book would be very helpful!

A companion CD can also be purchased to go along with this set. It includes all the music found in the books, so you can just pop in the CD and play the song when you get to it in the book. All the sheet music found in the book can also be printed off of the CD. What I like the best about it, are the coloring sheets that you can print off for your child.

This set of books is what I would consider a living book, something that can be hard to find. We home school using the Charlotte Mason method, so I was thrilled to discover these books!

Buy It!
You can buy all of these items grouped together as a package deal for $30.90.

Win It!
Zeezok publishing is giving away Chopin set to one of our readers! To enter, go to Zeezok publishing and find a different item of interest to you and leave a comment telling me what it would be.

EXTRA ENTRIES!
You can do any of these things for an extra entry. Make sure to leave a separate comment for EACH thing you do.

1- Subscribe to our blog via email.

2. Follow us on our blog using Google Friend connect!

3. Follow us on Facebook and leave a comment letting us know.

4. Follow us on Twitter and leave a comment letting us know you follow!

5. Blog about this giveaway and leave the link.-2 extra entries (leave two comments saying you did this).

6- Place our Modest Mom button on your blog.

PLEASE leave a separate comment each time you do one of the above. The comments are closed on this post, just use the form below to enter. We never share your email addresses with anyone, which is why we use the form to keep them private!

This giveaway will end Tuesday, September 14th at midnight, and a winner will be posted the following morning.We will notify the winners and they will have 36 hours to respond! Open to US Only.

This was not a paid post and my honest opinions were used. The opinions are solely my own. Thank you to Zeezok publishing who supplied the product for the review and giveaway.






Labels: , ,