Teaching About the Four Seasons Through Music

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

There are seasons, 4 in all!

In addition to our usual lessons about the seasons, we decided to extend the student's learning by introducing them to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.  We wanted the students to be able to recognize that ideas or moods can be communicated through music.

To build some background knowledge, we introduced Vivaldi, and defined composer as a person whose job is to write music using notes. we also showed them an example of sheet music 

and an orchestra.

We found some great videos from YouTube that had images depicting the different seasons while playing Vivaldi's music. First, I had the students turn around facing the back of the room with their backs to the SmartBoard while I played one of the pieces. Then I had them "think-pair-share" which seasonal piece they thought the music was portraying. I called on a few children and had them explain to me what about the music made them think it was "winter, or spring, etc.).  Many of them could explain that the music was slow and "sleepy" or fast and had energy. The last step was for the students to turn around and watch/hear the piece on the SmartBoard to check and see if their 

guesses were correct.