Monday, October 4, 2010

Composer Study: Franz Peter Schubert

I must admit, although I was pretty familiar with the name Schubert, I really knew very little about him and much of his music. We all found him to be very interesting and we will be adding more of his music to our collection.
Resources
Franz Schubert and His Merry Friends by Opal Wheeler & Sybil Deucher (1939) *****
We are working our way through the Opal Wheeler composer series. The stories are delightful (the kids beg me to keep reading) and we love being able to listen to samples of the music, using the companion CD. I even find the books to be helpful in teaching the kids how to read music, since the music is printed in the book. I didn't realize this the first few times we used the CDs, but they also contain coloring sheets for each chapter. I found the coloring sheets to be a great addition to our study because it gives additional opportunities for review and narration -- plus my kids like to color! We gave this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Franz Peter Schubert by Eric Michael Summerer (2006) ****
This non-fiction book had some helpful pictures and a few tidbits not included in the previous book. It is a perfect review book for the younger elementary student.
The Life and Times of Franz Peter Schubert would be good for the older student.


We're big fans of the Beethoven's Wig CDs, so we always listen to the songs that correlate with our current composer study. Schubert can be found on volume 2, tracks 6 & 17.
You Tube videos were a big part of our Schubert study. Sometimes I had to put Post-it notes over the comments, so be sure to look out for inappropriate language if you watch on You Tube.
Here are a few we watched:








I never posted a couple of our Mozart and Beethoven studies from last year, so I will try to get those posted too.

3 comments:

  1. I tried commenting on your most recent post and kept getting an error message, so I'm trying here.

    I am glad AAS is working well for you all this year. I have not watched all the IEW videos either but have let the boys start watching the student video sessions. I'm learning from that... enough at least to grade and give feedback.

    You school looks so fun and lively! :)

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  2. Strange! I hate it when Blogger is difficult. I did a test comment and it went through, but I have times like that when trying to comment on other blogs.

    Do you like the student IEW videos? I think I just have the teacher ones.

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  3. We just started the same Shubert book yesterday. Just love the books by Opal Wheeler.
    Blessings
    Diane

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