Jingle All the Way – Ideas for December

I LOVE teaching the Nutcracker to students and honestly love the tradition and the story of nutcrakers!  I got my first nutcracker in 2nd grade and have been collecting them for years.  I’ve got quite a variety of nutcrackers sitting around my room at school and when kids come in they’ve got tons of questions.  It’s fun to tell the story of the nutcracker and get kids excited about ballet (who would have thought, but they love it!).  Here are some of my favorite nutcracker activities.

Often I’ll start introducing the Nutcracker music in Kindergarten or 1st grade with the animated scenes from Disney’s “Fantasia.”  It’s really fun to show these to the kids because they love the cartoons and also start to learn the actual music of the Nutcracker.  I don’t show the actual full ballet to the young kiddos so this is a nice start to get them interested.  Sometimes I’ll show the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy from Fantasia and then play the same song with a video of a Nutcracker production from YouTube.  The kiddos can make a pretty good connection between the light and quickly moving fairies in Fantasia and the way that the dancer moves quickly and lightly.    Then if they’re really interested I might show them a video of dancers performing the Dance of the Snowflakes.  Here is a video that I often use to show the KDG kiddos the “Sugar Plum Fairy.”  Also, if you show Fantasia and then want to show the ballet to the kiddos check out this video and especially watch the “Trepak” at 1:08.  The dancers are wearing costumes that look a lot like the Disney version’s interpretation.  It might help students make more connections.

For older students I love using the “Trepak” activity from Artie Almeida’s Parachutes and Ribbons and Scarves, Oh My!  It helps to teach listening skills, form identification, and oh man is it fun!  The kids are up and moving and jumping and ribbon wands are involved!  It’s become a favorite in my classroom.  I generally teach it with 2nd grade and bring it back for 3rd grade (a lot of kids actually ask for it!).

I just found this awesome, Nutcracker inspired cup passing game on Pinterest  from Eric Young.  Here’s a link to his blog post about the lesson.  I used a cup passing game with my students when I taught the folk song “I’ve been to Harlem” a few months ago.  This new game set to the Nutcracker’s “Trepak” looks like a fun and easy extension for the cup game and would be great to teach to kiddos in a couple different grades.  ​ It would be especially fun if we used the Artie Almeida version first and then once the kids knew the form of the song we could transition to this activity!

Here’s the link on Pinterest in case you want to pin it yourself.  Speaking of Pinterest, I have a whole board on my Pinterest devoted to the Nutcracker.  Check it out when you click HERE.

Oh, and one more Nutcracker tip!  Often you can find HD full productions of the Nutcracker ballet on YouTube.  Check out this great recording I found and make sure you watch the Russian Dancers do the “Trepak” starting around 1 hour into the show.  They’re pretty awesome!  I know my kids love the flipping and gymnastic type dance at the end.

Jingle Bells Activities

I have a class set of jingle bells… that only really get used during this season.  So, why not use them really well for at least a month!  Here are some of my Jingle Bell ideas.[su_spacer size=”10″]

I teach the song “Jingle Bells” with KDG and 1st grade and often I start with this book.  It’s a cute little retelling of the Jingle Bell song/story.  A family of bears gets in a “one horse open sleigh” and travels to see their friends.  Along the way they run in to Santa.  His reindeer all got sick with colds and had to stay home which means he doesn’t have a sleigh to visit every house and he needs some help to deliver all of the presents on time.  The book is definitely cute but also has the real words to the song with other narration written in around the lyrics.  It’s a fun place to start and makes a great segue into the song.  Also, it’s cheap to buy.  😀

With KDG and 1st grade they can often sing the chorus with ease but get lost on the verses.  So, instead of trying to get them to sing all the lyrics of the verses I have them just play jingle bells instead.  Kids are told to keep a steady beat while I sing the verse and then they come in and sing the chorus with me.  One thing I added was after the verse before the chorus I add an “OOOOOOOOOO” before we go on to sing “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way!”  I put a little fermata on the “O” and all students stop their steady beat to make an O with their arms over their head.  It’s cute and shakes things up a bit.  We can sing like this for a while so I’ll often sing all the verses while they keep the steady beat.  They jump in when they hear me get to the chorus part.

My class set of bells come on a little handle with velcro.  Kids can adjust them or wear them like a bracelet if they wanted to.  I tell them to wrap it around their fingers.  Then on different verses we’ll play the steady beat in a new place and no matter what we do the bells still play.  Maybe verse one we’ll tap the steady beat with two hands on our legs, then we might clap on the second verse, then we might do alternating hands to finish.  You can really do anything you want with this, but it breaks up the action and keeps it fresh for kids.

With my older kids I teach them Jingle Bells using this PowerPoint with included history, extra lyrics, backstory, and vocabulary.  This helps them make a connection with the song and start to put the carol in context.  The picture of the “one horse, open sleigh” and the vocab definitions absolutely help the kiddos understand the song a little better.

I also pull out the sleigh bells for these kids only I expect them to do a little more.  I have them play a steady beat on the verse (so they can focus more on the singing) and then they play the rhythm on the chorus while they sing.  This is a fun activity because it teaches them more about form and how the song can be broken down.  As a final activity I have them think the melody in their heads (Gordon people, this is sort of like “audiating” right?) but not sing out loud.  I could sit down an play the melody on the piano while students play bells and think the words in their heads.  Then they come in on the chorus and sing/play like normal.

Check out the image on the left to see a little visual explanation of how we play and sing through this song.  Just click to enlarge.

I’ve been teaching the 12 Days of Christmas for years.  I think it’s a great song to teach because you can spend time talking about cumulative form and kids easily hear and understand how to sing the melody.  One of the things that I did this year was to create a PowerPoint file with real pictures of all the birds and characters involved in this song.  That way, when we sing through and talk about turtle doves or swans or even a partridge for that matter, I can show students a picture of the real animal.  It gives them context and helps them connect.  I also added in mp3 audio files to the PowerPoint so that kiddos can hear each character as well.  They freaked out when I played the sounds for them because they knew so many of the bird calls but didn’t know that they belonged to that bird.  You can get a copy of the PowerPoint if you want, just check out this link.  Below I’ll include some pictures from the PowerPoint so you can see what’s included.

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Oh, and I also thought I’d mention my favorite YouTube Christmas Light rendition of the 12 Days.  I love this version because it features a recording of the song by the Muppets, the lights are also cumulative (every new verse gets a new set of lights that “add in” and accumulate), and it’s not too crazy or over the top.  I do not love it for the shaky camera work… but on a digital projector in my classroom the kids don’t seem to mind.  😀

We talk about the dreidel a little bit, we sing through the song, we add silly little actions where the kids spin around on their spot for the chorus (like human-sized dreidels), and then we get ready to move on.  I always make sure to talk about the cultural connections and history of the songs and I think that helps kids make connections to the outside world.  I often teach this song with 5th graders.  In their 4th grade year I show the “Sound of Music” and so when we get to the dreidel song/game I can make a connection back to SOM and some of the history we learned then.  This game is also a great activity because later in their 5th grade year my students will watch “Fiddler on the Roof.”

​I’ve been teaching in Kansas and Michigan and students don’t have too many opportunities to learn about Jewish people.  I try and make as many connections as I can so that kids know more and empathize more.  Last year I taught in Kansas City and in that city there was a shooting at the Jewish Community Center.  You’d better believe that we had a very interesting and thoughtful conversation when we learned the Dreidel song.

I teach the dreidel song and then we take some time to play the game.  Kids LOVE the dreidel game and I do my best to make this seem more like a game and less like gambling.  I actually had a kid say, “So, this is just like gambling?  You win or lose money depending on the spin” and I said, “No, this is just like Monopoly.  In that game you can lose or win money depending on where you land.  This is similar.”  What do I do to keep it from feeling like gambling.  I use math counters, buttons, or this year some colorful math/pattern links as the “gelt” that students can win or lose.  We use white boards as something hard to spin the dreidel on and little plastic bowls to keep the links/tokens.   Click the pictures above to enlarge and check out my student who won a lot and decided to make “a super swag necklace.”  His word not mine.

I added Carol of the Bells to my repertoire this year because it’s such a recognizable melody and pretty easy for the kids to catch on to (click here for the blog post about it).  I love that you can talk about ostinato and handbells (as opposed to other bells).  You can even make more historical and cultural connections when you talk about the background information and how the song came to be.  Did you know that it’s originally about a swallow?  I actually made a little carol set about this song.  If you want more information and backstory check out this link.   The kids love it!

Fun media ideas:  Check out this ad which features “Carol of the Bells” as played by NBA players with basketballs.  Don’t tell the kids what’s play, just show the video and see if they can figure out which song is being “performed.”  😀  Also, if you want to teach Carol of the Bells, check out this awesome Muppet rendition.

Whenever we learn a new song I try and take the time to explain vocabulary, backstory, context, and more.  My English Language Learners need that reinforcement but I’ve learned that all students benefit from taking the time to work through the difficult concepts.  Why teach them the song if they don’t know what the words mean?  Check out this lesson and how I integrated some critical thinking questions into the learning process.

Check out this little blog post about how I take my first graders caroling to our front office with the song “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”  They love it, the ladies in the office LOVE playing along, and hey we’re teaching content at the same time!  This year I jazzed up the lesson with posters and visuals from my recent Favorite Carols Teacher Kit of We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  My students loved seeing the picture of the flaming figgy pudding and were a little worried I might make them dress up to go caroling like the kids in the clip art.  ​

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I hope some of these ideas have been helpful and can make it a little easier for you to make it through the week.  Don’t forget to check out Pinterest for other great ideas and activities.  Never fear friends.  We can make it to break!!