🎵 🎨 Homeschool Arts & Music: Little Lessons for the Whole Year

One of the deepest purposes of a liberal education is to enable people to get jokes. David Chase’s brilliant arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” illustrates that happy principle for us as we approach the end of our Homeschool Holiday Music Month.

For Homeschool Holiday Music Month, introduce your students to the early American tradition of shape-note music by way of the beautiful carol “Star in the East,” first published in the Southern Harmony collection in 1835.

“God bless your house, your children too, / Your cattle and your store; / The Lord increase you day by day / And send you more and more.” (The Sussex Mummers’ Carol, from Percy Grainger and others, for Homeschool Holiday Music Month.)

“It came, a flow’ret bright, / Amid the cold of winter, / When half spent was the night.” (An ancient German carol that has been translated into many languages, for Homeschool Holiday Music Month.)

“We stood on the hills, Lady, / Our day’s work done, / Watching the frosted meadows / That winter had won.” (A Christmas night carol, from Bob Chilcott and Clive Sansom, for Homeschool Holiday Music Month.)

Introduce your homescholars (in just five minutes) to one of the world’s most famous pieces of classical music, from George Frideric Handel, for our Homeschool Holiday Music Month.

Introduce your homeschool students to an American folk tune that has now become an internationally famous Christmas carol, and invite them to think about how a single piece of music can sound very different under different vocal and instrumental arrangements.

“Methinks I see an heavenly host / Of angels on the wing; / Methinks I hear their cheerful notes, / So merrily they sing.” (Discover what Christmas sounded like at the time of the American Revolution.)