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JANUARY 2013

MOZART’S BIRTHDAYA water xylophone

Background

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria on 27th January 1756. His father was a composer and music teacher who taught Mozart and his sister music. Wolfgang was recognised as a musical prodigy at a young age and he wrote his fi rst compositions at the age of fi ve, when he was only six his father took him and his sister on a tourof Europe where they played to royal courts. During his life Mozart composed over600 works, including operas, chamber music, piano concertos, symphonies as well as lighter entertainment pieces. He died at the age of 35 after a short illness. His birthdayand his music are celebrated every year.

You will need:

• 6 tall glasses (or glass jars) of the same size • water • pencils or metal teaspoons • blu-tac • children’s xylophone • fl ashcards of instruments (violin, piano, oboe, xylophone, drum)

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Multiple Intelligences in Activity 1

Musical and Logical Mathematic Intelligence – the children takepart in a musical experiment, predicting how the sound of produced will be affected by the amount of water in the jar.

Activity 1

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Instructions:

1. Show the children the fl ashcards of the instruments and talk about what they are and how they are played. Tell the children that you are going to make a xylophone in class today.

2. Line up the glasses next to each other (but not touching) with blu-tac on their base to help stabilise them. Invite a child volunteer to tap the glasses with a pencil to see the sound it makes.

3. Add water to each jar, a little water in the fi rst jar and then more water to each jar, the last should be almost full of water.

4. Ask the children what noises they think the glass will make when you tap the glass now and how it might be different from glass to glass. Invite six volunteer children to tap each glass with a pencil and compare how the sounds are different.

5. Invite different children to tap the glasses until every child has had a turn.

6. Show the children the xylophone and explain how this works in the same way but instead of different amounts of water it has different pieces of wood or metal to make the different sounds.

Follow-up activity:

Tell the children that you are going to play an old French folk tune to them and they must listen and see if they recognise it (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star).

CC GG AA G FF EE DD C GG FF EE D GG FF EE D CC GG AA G FF EE DD C

Invite volunteer children to come and help you play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on the xylophone.

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Note: Tell the children that many people mistakenly think that Mozart wrote the musicto Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, but it is actually a traditional French folk tune (“Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”). Mozart did write 12 variations on this traditional music when he was about25 years old.

If you would like to play the Mozart variations you can fi nd a video of a 12 year old concert pianist George Li playing them on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGln8LFA8Qw

The children could listen to this while they are doing the Fast Finisher’s Worksheet activity.

Fast Finishers:

This Fast Finisher’s Worksheet involves fi nding the musical instruments hidden on the pageand writing the number of the instruments on the box. The children can colour the instruments in the worksheet when they have fi nished counting.

Key:

2 xylophones, 3 pianos, 4 violins, 5 oboes, 6 drums.

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© Oxford University PressPhotocopiable

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© Oxford University PressPhotocopiableFast Finisher’s Worksheet