It’s Saturday, August 24, 2019, and time for Music in Homescholing ! I would like to invite you to check out this Recommended Website: Sphinx Kids. If you’ve used Sphinx Kids a Homeschooling Resource. What did you like or dislike about the website and why?
Age Range: 6-13 (Grades 1-8, with parental supervision) This website is a companion to the Sphinx Organization that “transform lives through the power of diversity in the arts.” Sphinx Kids bring classical music into underserved schools nationwide.
The website, partially sponsored by AT&T and the New York Philharmonic, provides free interactive games that introduce kids to the world of classical music, instruments of the orchestra, and the diversity of many composers of classical music.
When you get to the website you’ll see a menu that includes:
- Minority Composer’s Forum – Learn about the lives and musical compositions of renown minority composers such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Undine Smith Moore, Heitor Villa-Lobos and more. Listen to samples of their compositions.
- Practice Room – Pick a stringed instrument (violin, viola, cello, or bass) and watch videos of minority musicians playing scales and etudes.
- Minorities On Stage – Watch videos of performances by minority musicians, and be sure to click on “See What’s Going On Backstage” to watch video-interviews with the musician-laureates. Their stories are inspirational.
- Music Match: Composers – Match the classical composers to their musical compositions.
- Music Match: Instruments – Play a match game with instruments of the orchestra.
- Instrument Storage Room – Take an animated tour of the storage room and learn about each instrument and hear it played.
- String Instrument Gallery – Learn about each part of the violin, viola, cello, and bass and what it does.
- Composer’s Gallery – Take an animated tour of a gallery of composers born from the 1600s through the 1900s. Read their bios and hear samples of their music. Includes: Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Gershwin, Ellington, Debussy, Danielpour, Chopin, Britten, Brahms, Bernstein, Beethoven, Beach, Handel, Mozart, Lindberg, Leon, Kolb, Kodaly, Joplin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Sheng, and many more.
This is a terrific way to introduce children and their families to classical music and to the diversity of the composers of that music.
NOTE: Since Shockwave is no longer available, some of the links are not accessible, but there is enough here to keep you busy learning about the orchestra and its beautiful music!
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
