Using Pandora in Our Homeschool

I love the Pandora music service!  Free music, huge variety, and more convenient than a standard radio?  Yes please!  (I swear this isn't a sponsored post. lol)

You can see below that I have 4 playlists that I use all the time.  Not shown is my Christmas playlist and a Halloween one that I made for a party three years ago.  I don't have a playlist for current pop/rock favorites because I find that I'm more interested in listening to that kind of thing on the regular radio when I'm in the car.

I'm obsessed with my Musicals playlist!  I'll listen to that one and the Disney Musicals playlist all day when I'm doing chores or making dinner.  When I've got the Musicals playlist blasting, the kids are being exposed to Newsies, Hamilton, Phantom of the Opera, Les Mis, and a ton of others!  It's prompted so many discussions as they've asked, "what's this song about?"  So often the discussion turns to a history lesson (as I've talked about here.)  Homeschoolers look for educational opportunities everywhere!  Plus, I like the idea of raising little musical theater geeks.

My Sunday playlist is filled with mostly Mormon Tabernacle Choir plus various singers and musicians performing songs from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' hymn book.  I try to put this on as everyone is waking up and getting ready for church.  The idea is to set the tone of the day and invite the Holy Spirit so we start the Sabbath right.

Finally, the playlist that we use the most is called No Words.  It's mostly classical music by Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, etc.  But there's also plenty of Piano Guys, Kenny G, Yanni, etc on there.  This plays almost the whole time during school.  I found an interesting article from Psychology Today title, "Does Music Help Memory?"  I think for me, and hopefully my kids, the answer to that question is "yes!"  Although, I think it's important to listen to instrumental music only so we don't get distracted by the lyrics.  Additionally, we read biographies of several classical musicians last school year so I really like that they're getting exposed to this type of music. 

Do you use music in your homeschool?  What do your Pandora playlists look like?