A friend recently sent me a link to Classics for Kids, a site which produces free radio programs and podcasts about composers and classical music. This is an awesome site!
We had the opportunity to see the childrens opera Mozart and the Magic Flute last night. Before we left, I went to the Classics for Kids site and did a search for Magic Flute. We were able to listen to this brief, 6-minute long podcast produced for kids. The children had a good idea of the story line, as well as some ideas about how Mozart crafted the score so that the musical voice for each character was unique.
This site has games, lesson plans, activity sheets and recordings of past shows. You can also subscribe to the weekly podcast and download recent shows as MP3 files.
We’ve only just scratched the surface of this site, but I know we’ll be using it a lot more next year when we are studying the Renaissance.
We LOVE Classics for Kids. I just found it this year, too.