The Nutcracker Museum

Each year in 2nd grade we study "The Nutcracker". I read them the story and then we listen to the eight pieces in the suite. We follow along with several listening maps and do lots of creative movement activities. We also create a Nutcracker Museum. Any student who has a nutcracker at home can bring it to school to be displayed until Christmas. This year is the most I have ever had!

The Nutcracker

In 2nd grade we study The Nutcracker and I encourage kids to bring in any nutcrackers that they have at home to show the class. This year, one student and her grandpa made a homemade nutcracker just for music class! How cool is that?!

Nutcracker Museum

The 2nd Graders just finished studying "The Nutcracker Suite" by Peter Tchaikovsky. This year, students brought in any nutcrackers that they had at home and we created a nutcracker museum. We got quite a variety. One was from Germany, one was from Hawaii, one was received after a student attended an actual performance of the ballet, some were Christmas ornaments, and others represented favorite sports teams.We even got 2 metal nutcrackers that actually are used for cracking nuts. Everyone enjoyed looking at all the different kinds.  Here's a picture of our museum.

Guided Listening with Plates

The 6th graders are currently studying Rondo form. We did a guided listening activity from the book "Parachutes, Ribbons, and Scarves, Oh My!" to the "March" from The Nutcracker. We used plastic plates and did different actions to represent each section in the piece.

Russian Dance

The 2nd graders are once again studying The Nutcracker Suite by Peter Tchaikovsky. While listening to Russian Dance, we added hand drums and rhythm sticks to play along with the recording. We discussed the form of the piece (ABA Coda) and each instrument was used to represent the different sounding sections. We also discussed accents, repeats, and codas. So many things to learn in one piece!

The rhythms each part played.

The hand drums played on the A section.

Rhythm sticks played the B section.

Russian Dance (Trepak)

Continuing with our study of "The Nutcracker Suite", today the 2nd graders learned the "Russian Dance." There are lots of accents in this piece, so we used our handkerchiefs again to give each accented note a little "punch."



"Punching" the accents in the 'A' section.



Walking the steady beat in the 'B' section.

Accenting the last note of the piece in the Coda.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies!

The 2nd graders are currently studying "The Nutcracker Suite." We used handkerchiefs to make up our own interpretive dance for "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." The kids love the fact that our Christmas program had sugar plum fairies in it as well! Cool!