Hymn Study

For Hymn Study we love the living books by Douglas Bond in the Mr. Pipes series. There are currently 4 books in the series covering different time periods of hymn writers. The story is of 2 American children who go to England on vacation and meet an elderly church organist and hymn historian, who shares stories about hymn writers of old and the hymns they wrote. Besides reading and narrating these stories, we also copy and learn to sign the hymns, add them to our timelines, and do further research and writing on some of the authors and hymns.

The series is an ongoing story between Mr. Pipes and the children. But we didn’t start with the first book and we didn’t get lost. Obviously when we went back and read the first, it filled in some answers. But feel free to start where you like.

Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Writers is where the children first meet Mr. Pipes, so it is first even though it isn’t first in history chronology.
Mr. Pipes and Psalms and Hymns of the Reformation is next – this is where we started, because it was what we were studying in History.
Mr. Pipes Comes to America is next – we haven’t read it yet.
Mr. Pipes and the Accidental Voyage is the newest and about the Early Centuries of the Church – so the first in hymn chronology but last in story order.

We just got the new Accidental Voyage this week and my children are upset that we won’t be getting to it this year. I planned on just finishing the British one and taking a break for a while. They obviously really love them.

We also have and have used are 101 Hymn Stories.
I’ve seen and plan to get Hymns for a Kid’s Heart series by Joni Tada
too. See more about all these resources on our History: Music & Art webpage.

I just ran across a website yesterday that looks like it will be a good supplement for us. Songs and Hymns.org has information about the hymn itself, the lyric writer, the tune composer, (including pictures of many of them -which is how I stumbled upon this site, looking for pictures of the writers), Scripture the hymn is based on, the words and music to listen to and read, and a story about the writing of the hymn and a devotional about it. Their daily radio show, Adoration Songbook, can be heard on some radio stations or listened to online. It is 5 short episodes about the hymn of the week.

UPDATE: Here are a couple more links to websites we’ve used in our hymn studies. Timeless Truths and The Cyber Hymnal. And a couple of Psalms sites. Psalm Singing – we found it when looking for The Scottish Metrical Psalter, and a more recent find, Psalter.org.