This lesson plan was developed for three- to five-year old developmentally delayed students. It is a very simplified study of the three movements of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons: Spring. The three movements demonstrate the tempos of allegro and largo, and provide opportunity for children to move in dance and play rhythm instruments to the music and the words of Vivaldi's sonnets. Varied art activities, nature walks and children's literature about spring and the weather are an integral part of the lesson.
Students will recognize the instruments of the orchestra from sight and sound by utilizing the www.sfskids.org website. They will compare the sounds of different instruments and learn to classify them into four families. Students will make their own fabric square to be sewn into a quilt that will be displayed in the classroom.
Students will be introduced to the great jazz composer and band leader, Duke Ellington by listening to his re-composed, re-orchestrated version of Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, following a previously taught thematic lesson about Tchaikovsky's classic. Students use there prior knowledge of musical concepts and the instrumentation of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite to recognize similar melodies in Ellington's work to that of Tchaikovsky. Share and Discuss >View Lesson Plan (PDF 0.1MB)
Students will recognize and identify the sounds of different orchestral instruments; learn and use the tempo markings from the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; research the similarities between adaptations in nature and variations in music/visual art; and create visual art which illustrates the connection among natural adaptations and music variations.
After studying the life of Ludwig van Beethoven, students will listen to, become familiar with, and identify distinguishing characteristics of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, the "Pastoral". Selected landscape art will be explored and correlated with specific movements of the symphony. The sonnet, On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven by Edna St. Vincent Millay, will be interpreted. Student poetry elicted by an imagninary walk in the meadow with Beethoven will be illusutrated with their art.
When did music develop? What role did music play in pre-civilization? This lesson asks students to interact with the music and art of the hunters and gathers, and determine what role it played in their culture.