Where do you get instruments?

This is a question that comes up fairly often, so I decided to answer it here.

First of all, local sources:

The Target $1 section often has wooden instruments around Christmas, and sometimes at other points in the year. I wouldn't use these with any child who might put them in their mouth except under supervision, because they're labeled 3+, but they're an inexpensive, and often decent sounding way to build up an instrument collection. The wooden Castanets are especially nice.

Hobby Lobby has handbell sets, both small and large periodically, usually in the section right up by the cash register. These are the ones I use in class, and they are identical to those sold by music stores. Hobby Lobby often runs 40% off coupons online, so check there-with one, a set of handbells is only about $15.

Knowledge Tree, Village Toymaker, Toys R Us, Target Toy Section and Learning House all have a small instrument selection-but they're usually very expensive for what you get-and the sound quality isn't always great. Boomwhackers, the LP kids Percussion line, Woodstock percussion, Hohner, and Remo are sometimes available this way. 

Your kitchen-empty containers, plastic storage containers, metal spoons...anything that's not heirloom, silver, or breakable can be used to make music!

Amro Music, Memphis Music and other Music stores. These sometimes carry the Remo or LP kids percussion, but they also carry small percussion instruments in general, and you can assume that these will generally be good instruments. My favorite brands for small percussion are Remo, LP, CP, Yamaha, and Nino. All have proven to be of high quality in the past.

Online-

http://www.kindermusik.com
The Kindermusik store sells many of the instruments used in class in small quantities to parents, and it's not a bad source for instruments. I do find that they're often a little expensive compared to other vendors, but Kindermusik safety tests their instrument to a much greater degree than almost anyone else out there-far more than what is required by law in the US, so especially for something your child will be playing with unsupervised, it's a good choice. Labeling on age tends to be conservative, so you can trust that if something is labeled for under 3s,  it's going to stand up to being chewed, spit on, leaked on, thrown, pounded, and generally abused without breaking into sharp parts.


http://www.westmusic.com
West Music, in Coralville Ia, is probably my favorite music store anywhere as far as comprehensive selection, and while they're often not the least expensive on everything, they are reasonably priced, have the materials in stock, so you rarely get back orders (I'm tempted to say never), and ship quickly.  They are also one of the few vendors that sells the larger Orff instruments we sometimes use in class-which are expensive, but absolutely wonderful. They have a special "under 3 section", mostly the Hohner Kids, LP, and Remo line.

http://www.empire-music.com
Empire music has lower prices than many other online stores, and has free shipping over $35. However, they do not sort based on age. "Early Childhood", in this case, means birth to age 6-7, so if you have a baby or toddler, I would not assume all of the instruments here are going to be safe for use for less supervised play.

http://www.rhythmband.com
Rhythm Band Inc has been around forever. If you played with those white resonator bars with red wood bases when you were in elementary school, or red wood drums with skin heads, or triangles with wood ball handles, you've probably played a rhythm band instrument. Most kindergarten classrooms have sets of their instruments. They are a good way to build up a collection quickly, but they're not as nice sounding as Remo, LP and the like. They ARE a great source for resonator bars and handbell resources, including nice color coded music. If they say something is "currently out of stock" or "currently back ordered" don't bother to order-you'll probably see it 6 months from now when you've completely forgotten about it. They do not ship quickly under the best of circumstances.

 http://www.suzukimusic.com/education/
Suzuki has great prices on recorders, kids percussion, and Orff instruments. One thing I like about their Orff instruments is that they have holders for the extra bars and mallets right on the instrument, which is GREAT for home use. Please note that most of their "kids" instruments are rated 4+ unless they're reselling something made by another company.

Anyway, I hope this helps! Have fun making music!

Free trial subscription to EduActiveLearning.com

Sara Jordan, who is the creator of the Bilingual Songs CD series, which is extremely well done, and many other educational materials, has asked me to announce a free 7 day trial of their online streaming site
http://www.EduActiveLearning.com

Not only does this let the kids hear the songs (and gives you a chance to "Try before you buy"), but it shows the words highlighted as the children hear the songs. If you have a child who enjoys Starfall.com, this may be a good fit for them.

I have found Sara Jordan CDs locally at Knowledge Tree and the Booksellers at Laurelwood, as well as through numerous online retailers.

Musical carschooling-the primary grades

As a homeschool music mom who has a child who seems to thrive on activities, sometimes it seems like we're never home to have school! One way I supplement this is via using audio recordings in the car. For this list, I'm focusing on curriculum supplements, although a few could be used as your primary curriculum source for a young child.

Here are some of my favorite places to find  these.

Discovery Education-If you have a subscription, make sure you check there first. There's a big library of audio/songs available, including most of Twin Sisters, Music for Mar, Lodge McCannon, Teacher and the Rockbots, Audio books, speeches, and more. It's a little annoying in that you can only download one song/track at a time, not whole albums, but if you're already paying for the subscription, why not use it?

Napster.com-Obviously, there are lots of audio download sites out there. The reason I like Napster is, to be blunt, I usually get to download from there for free. If you have coke addicts in your life who are willing to save you the rewards codes, these can be traded for audio downloads. Just put in what you're studying, listen to samples, and decide what you want to get. 

Big Lots-Twin Sisters CD sets often appear here, for far less than in teaching stores.

Scholastic $1 sales. While most of these are .pdf files, a few have audio files available as well, and it's hard to beat a $1 audio album, even if only one or two songs are immediately useful to you.

Now, here are some favorites-please note, these are picked for educational value and ones that my daughter enjoyed. In most cases, they're not the best singing models for children. Most children's artists sing in a lower pitch than is ideal for children, and many use a folk music type style, which isn't the more pure tones used in teaching vocal music. If you don't like the sound of a CD, by all means, sing the songs yourself-acapella singing with children is wonderful to do, and most of these are very simple.

Math-
There are lots of math facts CDs out there. They're nice for reinforcing already learned concepts. Here are some that I've used/own.

Schoolhouse Rock Multiplication Rock-Nostalgia anyone? This is probably my favorite math CD :).

Twin Sisters-addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Not my favorite, but my daughter enjoys the songs with breaks in them to yell out the answers.

Teacher and the Rockbots-a little "harder", more contemporary than I like, but it's fun to watch my daughter and her friends trying to hip-hop dance to multiplication tables or measurement concepts.

Rock and Learn-Have a musical style your child likes? Chances are good they have a CD with the same set of words, but a different musical style for each, whether it's rap, pop, rock, country, or so on Again, these aren't my favorites, but some people love them.

Google Power Crazy 4 Math-Nice "history of Math" focus with a combination of stories and songs. I used this in combination with history.

Language Arts-

Twin Sisters-see above-mostly for Phonics and early learning

Handwriting Without Tears-Rock, Rap, Tap and Learn. Where do you start your letters? AT THE TOP! My daughter LOVED this CD, and at one point I had three little girls in the playroom, happily bouncing along with pom-poms.

Shurley English Jingle Time-I don't use Shurley as my primary LA curriculum, but the Jingles/songs are a nice addition to any grammar curriculum. My daughter also liked the coloring/activity book that is available to go with the Jingles.

Audio Memory-Grammar Songs. These haven't caught on as well as the Shurley ones, maybe because they're a little longer.

Schoolhouse Rock-Grammar Rock-Conjunction Junction...what's not to love?

Science-
Lyrical Science-We've only done Lyrical Life Science here so far, but it's been a real hit. I'm looking forward to enjoying the other CDs.

AIMS Singing Songs of Science-Very cute and fun-although I wonder how much you really need a song about mealworms?

Twin Sisters-at least one CD for most science disciplines, plus a bunch about specific topics.

Sing and Learn with The Weather Dude-a meterologist/musician has fun singing songs about his favorite subject-weather!

Science on the Wild Side-A little "harder" than Twin sisters, with a lot of fun topics, but not necessarily ones that fit in well with a specific curriculum study in the way the Lyrical Life Science does. The Slug Slide was a favorite around here.

Schoolhouse Rock Science Rock-some of these haven't aged as well as grammar and multiplication, but they're still fun.

Teacher and the Rockbots-again, a little "harder" than some, but worth checking out if you have discovery education or slightly older kiddos who like that style of music.

History/Geography


 Tunes that Teach History-songs about single topics, tend to be a little on the humorous side and possibly a little less serious-but also often have sparked discussions.

Audio Memory History Songs-Nice for US history timeline memorization

History Rocks-Kind of the "Teacher and the Rockbots" version of history, although it's by "Professor Presley".

Schoolhouse Rock-History Rock-US history 

Veritas Press-I'm not terribly fond of their timeline CDs-I like the Audio Memory ones better, but they are better aligned with the cards.

Audio Memory Geography Songs- These were very enjoyable, however some parts of them do not match current maps.

Twin sisters-lots of things for US states/capitals/geography/facts


Classroom Pop vol 1-Lamar Holley-This one has a mix of geography, world history and a little bit of science. I kind of wish he'd make another album, because this has been great for finding very quick little memory pieces to match curriculum areas.

Animaniacs-I LOVE the US states/capitals and the Yakko's World one, both on video and audio.

 Languages
Song School Spanish and Song School Greek-My daughter enjoyed both of these, and it gave her the confidence to tackle the languages more seriously. They're not everyone's cup of tea as far as the recordings go-these were mostly "listen once, then sing ourselves" CDs around here.

Hop, Jump and Sing Spanish-Ana Lomba. I love this album. It's little, short activities, mostly from Latin American countries, that are children's games/songs. Directions are on a separate track from the audio, so I put just the audio in Spanish on our car-schooling playlists, and left the instructions for when we could actually do the activities. Play and Learn Spanish is by the same author, and has a book to match with the CD, but is less movement-oriented.


Bilingual Songs English/Spanish-This is the closest to Song School Latin for Spanish that I've found, moving more into rules and grammar as you get into higher levels. Sara Jordan has a lot of other educational recordings as well-but I haven't used them all yet.

Twin Sisters-there is a CD for most modern languages available, with the same basic vocabulary (animals, body parts, members of the family and the like). My language-loving kid was thrilled when she found these on Discovery Education, because then she could learn the same words in Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Whew! I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, so please add your favorites, too!




































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