Meet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Grade level

Grades 2–5

Time

About 20 minutes

Topic

Composers

Answer key

Yes, page 2 of the PDF

Kids practice

Reading for information, Recalling facts from a passage, Placing composers in time, Connecting a composer to their music

What kids do

Printed on the sheet:

1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 in Salzburg, a city that is now part of
2. Austria. His father, Leopold, was a musician and taught him to play. Wolfgang began writing music when he was only five years old. As a boy he traveled across Europe with his father and his sister, Nannerl, playing the keyboard and the violin for kings and queens. When he grew up he lived in Vienna and wrote operas, symphonies and concertos. One of his best-known operas is The Magic Flute. Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35, but by then he had written more than 600 pieces of music.
3. Mozart began writing music when he was five.
4. Mozart was born in Italy.
5. Mozart’s sister was called Nannerl.
6. Mozart lived to be 90 years old.
7. Name an opera that Mozart wrote.
8. About how many pieces of music did Mozart write?

Teacher tip

Play a little of Eine kleine Nachtmusik and ask kids to imagine writing music at five. Compare that with what they were learning at the same age.

How to use it

• Have kids underline the sentence that proves each true or false answer.
• Find the composer’s home on a map and their years on a class timeline.
• End by clapping, singing or playing something from the sheet, so the page turns back into music.

Watch for

Thinking every composer lived at the same time. The five here span more than 250 years.

Talk about it

• How does the music make you feel?
• What does this symbol tell a musician to do?

Take it further

Write three questions you would ask the composer.

US Letter, prints well in black and white. Free for home and classroom use: print as many copies as you need.