Activities for The Nutcracker in Elementary Music
I never have enough time to spend on teaching The Nutcracker. It’s the perfect way to introduce students to ballet and some standard orchestral pieces, but it falls right in the middle of the biggest concert season for most of us. These are some of the things I’ve done over the years–certainly not all in the same year!
Nutcracker in 10 Minutes Video
As I said before, introducing students to ballet is one of the best parts of teaching the Nutcracker. I like to show this video when we first start talking about The Nutcracker. I point out the costumes, elaborate sets, skill of the dancers, and the fact that there is no speech in ballet but it still tells a story. The captions happen too fast for students to read, so I read those out loud for them.
Nutcracker Children’s Books
I have a few different versions of the story that I like to use. Some years we have time to get into the backstory of how the Nutcracker became cursed, and other years we don’t. This is my favorite book for a simple plot outline of the story. If you are trying to follow the ballet version, this book was written with the help of the New York City Ballet.
Movement to Music
One of my favorite ways to get students listening to the music from the Nutcracker is allowing them to move to it. These are my favorite follow-along videos on Youtube:
The fun part about the March of the Toy Soldiers and Trepak videos is there are two parts students can choose to follow. My students love picking between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker and then switching sides and doing the movements again.
Listening Glyphs
I used these quite a bit during the covid years when I was on a cart and we couldn’t sing or share instruments (or do basically anything). I’ve occasionally used them since then to fill in an extra lesson with a class, and the kids still really like them!
Instrument Play Alongs
Since most of my Nutcracker lessons are with the younger grades, we use these easy instrument play alongs that don’t require students to play a specific rhythm. Students play when their instrument is on screen. You can lead them in keeping a steady beat, playing a pre-determined ostinato, or just let them explore the instrument.
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (Triangle, Jingle Bells)
March of the Toy Soldiers (Tambourine, Wood Block)
Trepak (Tambourine, Triangle, Jingle Bells)
Chinese Dance/Tea (Egg Shaker, Triangle)
Waltz of the Flowers (Rainstick, Guiro, Sandblocks)
For the older kids, we do play alongs with rhythms, such as:
Create a Dance
One year I let my 3rd graders choose their own groups and come up with a movement routine to one of the pieces from The Nutcracker. They were allowed to use scarves, beanbags, ribbons, or no props. They had so much fun with it! Some of the routines were surprisingly good. Before I let them start, we watched several movement videos on Youtube and talked about following the form of the music, using symmetry in motions, facing the camera, and using small amounts of space so the younger kids could follow without running into each other. I then showed the videos to my K-1 classes.
