Hey, First name / friend!  

They say confession is good for the soul.  Apparently, my confession yesterday hit a nerve.  I got more emails back than I usually do!  That confession also motivated me to get in gear for next week's soft school start.  

This morning I decided to go ahead and make my playlists for the upcoming year.  Well, most of them.  

Many of you may know I create Gathering Playlists every month for our Gathering tradition.  I share them each month.  In our home, we listen to them every day!  Some of them have grown so beloved by our music-interested 5-year-old, they are requested for months after we have moved on.  October of last year gets requested the most.  And my older daughters ask for Prince Igor (yes, requesting Classical music!) along with my son!  

But the Gathering Playlists are only one of the ways we sneak music and audio into our days.  I also create playlists for our Classical Conversations memory work review, playlists for our Conlatio, playlists for cleaning, playlists for Latin, playlists for days!  The reason I do this is we ALL learn through music!  

That said, creating playlists is not always as easy as going to Spotify to find all the music and compiling it into a playlist.  We have a number of digital downloads or CDs we use in our homeschool.  And we are not iPhone or Apple users and we don't use Alexa devices, so I had to search out a solution that would work for us.

And I thought I would share it with you as part of Homeschool Prep Month.    

Here's what I do to create non-Spotify playlists for our homeschool. 

1. I gather the songs I want to use.  For Classical Conversations, I rip the CDs - wow that is such an old-fashioned thing to say! - onto my computer.  I also pull together our favorite CC memory work songs created by other CC mamas.  I highly recommend CC Happy Mom for Geography and The Musical Mama for Math Songs. 
 Both of these downloadable resources are extremely affordable and WORTH EVERY PENNY!!  

2. Once I know all the songs I want to add to Playlists, I go into YouTube Music.  It is somewhat hard to find, but if you go to YouTube and click on the tiled icon in the top right hand corner, you will see the YouTube apps.  Click on YouTube Music.  
 

3. Once I am in YouTube Music, I go to my Library.  I can literally drag and drop the music files from my computer to anywhere in the window.  It takes a little bit of time for the songs to fully upload to YouTube Music.  So, while it is uploading I think about the various playlists I am going to create with the music I have.   This morning, I created my CC memory work review playlists.  They are based on our memory work review schedule (which I have since updated - Note to self: need to update this article).  These are the Playlists I created and loaded this morning in less than 15 minutes: 

 - CC Math

 - CC Cycle 1 Latin

 - CC Cycle 1 Science

 - CC Cycle 1 English

 - CC Cycle 1 History

 - CC Timeline

 - CC Cycle 1 Geography

4.  I can create the Playlists all at once, so it is super easy to walk through the album or the music files I have uploaded and just add  them to the playlists.  Pro Tip: Keep in mind the order you want these songs to play.  Second Pro Tip: Make your playlists PRIVATE!!  The music you are adding to your playlists is copyright protected and needs to be protected from sharing publicly!!  

To add each individual song to the proper playlist, locate the three dots on the right hand side of each entry in the album.  Then select, “Add to Playlist.” 
 

The playlists you have created will pop up and you can select the one you want to add it to. 

As I said, this whole process for adding all the songs to my playlists only took about 15 minutes.  Not bad for an entire year's worth of homeschool prep, right?!

I almost forgot to add what I do with all these playlists!  When it is time to use these playlists, I simply go to our Google device (or my cell phone) and say, “Hey Google, play (name of playlist) on YouTube Music, please.” 

First name / Friend, when I went to go grab the links to The Musical Mama's math songs, I saw she is running a SALE!!  I have no idea how long the sale is running, so you may want to jump on it!  I prefer her multiplication songs to others I have heard over the past few years.  And I added her songs to our CC Math playlist because I have Essentials age students, who need to work on their times tables.   By the way, these songs will work with any math curricula!! 

You know I love hearing back from you with details of your homeschool, questions, or general encouragement.  Drop me a line and let me know how I can bless you!  Or, join a like-minded group of homeschooling mamas in my Facebook group Simple Homeschooling Blessings.  Oh, and there is a SPECIAL DISCOUNT CODE for the Gathering Placemats just for members!  We would love to have you there!  There is a questionnaire I think it is 2-3 questions to fill out to join the group.  Kindly fill that out and you will be automatically added to the Facebook group.  Otherwise your admission will be delayed.  

I only want to bless you this month as you prepare for your homeschool next year.  So, if this does not interest you in the least, please let me know!  You can click this link and fill out a super-quick form to let me know you are not interested in hearing about Homeschool Prep Month.  This action will remove you from ONLY this list, so you will receive my normal updates and Saturday Stroll emails. 

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