Folk Songs for Homeschool with Music Duo Academy

gold framed photos of girl standing next to computer monitor holding pencils or clapping hands with a music teacher on the tv screens folk songs for homeschool with music duo academy neededinthehome

My daughter, Megan, just loves to sing and make up her own songs. So we were excited to enhance her singing skills and try out learning folk songs for homeschool with the Pre-Apprentice 2 self-paced online course from Music Duo Academy for a product review.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I was given a free product and compensated for my time writing this article. All opinions are my own.

How To Find Your Child's Level

Before I was given the class to review, I needed to choose a level for Megan. Music Duo Academy makes this easy. From the main page, you just click Course Levels and then scroll down to read the level descriptions or use the placement wizard button. For Megan, I could see from the description that Pre-Apprentice 2 would be a good place for her as she is in 1st grade and has not sung using solfege (so, me or la) before.

Why Folk Songs For Homeschool?

Teaching music can be a tricky thing, especially since my background is Marketing and I am not very musical! Yet, I remember learning folk songs as a child that I still remember the words and melody to even though I am in my early 50s. This course uses folk songs in teaching the kids and I have to say it works really well!

music teacher on computer monitor online class pointing to rhythm sticks on the table smiling girl holding pencils as rhythm sticks

Some Folk Songs Used

When looking through everything before starting, I found that my daughter would be learning so many songs in her 35 lessons of classes. I was concerned that may be hard for her, but then I noticed that many songs are taught with repetition. That made me feel better because I know Megan loves to hear the same song again and again. Some of the songs were new to me. Here are some of the folk songs used…

Hey, Hey
Bye Baby Bunting
Can You Do As I Do?
Ring Around The Rosie
Rain, Rain
Bell Horses
Naughty Kitty Cat
Teddy Bear
Bow Wow Wow
Jelly In The Bowl
and more

Learning The New Songs

Miss Linda is the instructor of Music Duo Academy and is in all the videos in this course. She has more than 25 years of experience teaching music in public and private schools. Miss Linda uses cute little puppets, props, animated cartoon pictures, musical instruments and toys to teach a little information about each new song. She may explain the story behind the song, explain if there are any body movements that will be used and sing a little before having the student try it. She may ask the kids to clap, use rhythm sticks (or pencils) and to turn around. The videos vary in length, but it seems like they are each between 12 and 26 minutes long.

Miss Linda also plays games with the viewers. In the beginner video, she gives ways that the games can be played if there is only one child watching the video. Megan has siblings that are more than willing to join in as a group, so we played the regular way as in a group. Some of the games she teaches during the video have the kids sit on the floor in a circle and someone gets chosen to be “out” at the end of a rhyme or song, like “… I declare that you are out!” Megan really enjoyed playing these games and I think it really makes learning music into a fun time.

computer monitor with music teacher holding cat puppet and musical notes behind her smiling girl clapping her hands to the music

Self Paced Music Curriculum

You can go online at any time during your subscription and log in and use the online course and watch the pre-recorded video lessons. As a homeschool teacher, this is nice because in certain sport seasons for my older kids, I have to change my homeschool schedule. I may start out in Fall with Megan doing this Music class on Mondays and Wednesday, but need to change it in Spring to Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I like that there are no teacher check-ins or live classes to worry about. So, if we take a vacation for two weeks, we can be off of it completely and then return to it when we are back. Also, when Megan wants to do a lesson again after our homeschool time or on weekends, we can listen to the videos as many times as we want to during our subscription period.

Anytime you want to – even in the middle of the night or very early morning, you can access this. It's handy for me to look at the syllabus after Megan is in bed or before she is awake to see the objectives, materials needed and the checking for understanding part.

Sometimes supplemental visuals or games are offered in the lesson line up area of Music Duo Academy as additional instruction, these require the use of Google Slides. There are also quizzes available for each lesson. None of these are required to be done, but they can help the child to learn the lesson better. You may want to preview these before class starts so that you can better use these tools if you are unfamiliar with them.

music duo academy teacher miss linda with posture pictures for sitting on floor or in chair musical instruments and toys

Teaches Proper Posture When Singing

Miss Linda shows two cartoon pictures to give examples of proper posture to help them sing the best if the child is sitting in a chair or on the floor. I thought this was a really nice way to give the example to visual learners. Megan was able to copy them easily.

Warm Ups With Breathing and Vocal Explorations

One thing that Megan thought was really fun was doing the warm-ups at the beginning of a lesson before singing. Miss Linda has the kids do some breathing and uses a toy as a visual that gets larger and smaller depending on if the student is inhaling or exhaling.

Next, Miss Linda says, “follow the fish with your voice” or “follow the lightning bug with your voice” and there is a cartoon character on the screen that follows a dotted line going up and down as they make a fun sound. These are called Vocal Explorations. There are over a dozen of these available. You can find the Vocal Explorations in every lesson under the video. Megan enjoys doing these for fun outside of homeschool hours.

Learning Musical Words, Instruments and Seeing Musical Notes

I am impressed with how much a child can learn about music in general using this course. I was initially just excited that Megan would learn new songs, solfege and how to sing properly and better. I was surprised with just how complete and well-rounded this music course is.

Through the self-paced lessons, Megan is learning rhythm, melody, and is starting to read music using folk songs, visuals, movement, games, and simple percussion instruments. She is clapping, tapping, playing, and moving her way into real music literacy.

Megan learned some musical wording and what it means: like meter, accent, pattern, rhythm, bordun, weak beats and more. This wording is used and taught throughout the course with visuals for better long term learning with use.

As a homeschool teacher, I think it's great that she was able to see and learn what the instruments are called like flute, rhythm sticks, violin, and piano. It's also great that she was able to see sheet music examples so she knows what the notes look like on the scale.

Conclusion

This is a great online music class for Megan. She now understands music words, visuals and sounds, can sing several songs and she is having fun! I recommend giving Music Duo Academy a try for your child to have a wider understanding of music in general.

Try Out These Kids Music Lessons

Here are two resources from Music Duo Academy that work well for families just getting started:

Folk Song Sing-along (free) with 15 classic folk songs and printable lyrics
Singing Toolbox (paid)

Free Trial for 14 Days

Each course comes with a 14-day free trial so that you can have your child try it and see if it is a good fit. But you actually get access to 3 weeks worth of lessons for the trial! For the Apprentice levels, like Megan is doing, that gives you six shorter videos (20-25 minutes each). During the trial period, your payment method will not be charged. After 14 days, your payment method is charged and access opens up to all 35 weeks of lessons.

Use This Discount Code To Save Money

Currently, there is a discount offer. You get 10% off any full-year Music Duo Academy course by using the coupon code IHSN10 at checkout. This gets you a full year of structured lessons and you don't have to pay for any additional items within the course, everything is included in the cost.

music duo academy courses 35 weeks of lessons

Where To Find Music Duo Academy

Website: https://musicduoacademy.com

Instagram: @musicduo.ed

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicduo.ed

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Folk Songs for Homeschool with Music Duo Academy

How To Find Your Child's Level