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Lesson Plan Image

Four Seasons

The music of Vivaldi will serve as inspiration as students learn about seasonal variations and create art that depicts weather scenes.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

Steps

  • Step 1

    Seasons vary around the world. Have students learn about some of the differences. For example, in the northeastern part of the US, winter will include snow, but there has never been snow in places such as Honolulu, Hawaii or Key West, Florida. The Philippines has only two seasons: a wet season and a dry season. In Antarctica the sun shines for 24 hours from September to March but there is 24 hours of darkness during the other six months. And in Costa Rica it is pretty much summer year round. Ask students to investigate why these differences occur. Have them learn about how seasons are caused by the tilt of Earth's axis, the differences between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and how there is little temperature change in areas at the equator because its position never changes.

  • Step 2

    Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was an Italian Baroque composer noted for many concertos, operas, and sacred choral works. One of his best-known works is a set of four violin concertos known as "The Four Seasons." They are based on a set of Italian sonnets that some believe were written by Vivaldi himself. They are arranged as "Spring" (La primavera), "Summer" (L'estate), Autumn" (L'autunno), and "Winter" (L'inverno).

  • Step 3

    Play excerpts from each of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Ask students to note the sound he associates with each. Can they hear how the high-pitched instruments convey the sound of birds chirping in spring? How about how the icy wind of winter is represented by a swirling rush of violin notes?

  • Step 4

    Have students illustrate images of the seasons as they listen again to the music. Play excerpts from "Spring" and have them create a spring like scene on a quarter of a piece of construction paper. Continue with the other three seasons as they illustrate images associated with them. When the work is complete, have a discussion about how music can evoke the feelings, sounds, and imagery of visual scenes.

Standards

ARTS: Describe what an image or performance represents.

SCI: Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.

Adaptations

Baroque music refers to Western classical music composed between 1600 and 1750. Have students identify some of the dominant instruments used, such as the harpsichord, clavichord, recorder, and others, and listen to some excerpts of Baroque pieces such as "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" by Johann Sebastian Bach, "Water Music" by George Frideric Handel, "Canon in D" by Johann Pachelbel, or any others.

Baroque architecture is a highly decorative style that originated in Italy in the late 16th century and gradually spread across Europe. Have students look at images of some notable examples, such as Les Invalides Royal Chapel in Paris, France; the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia; the Palace of Versailles in France, or any others.