The Nutcracker

I had so much fun doing The Nutcracker with the Busy Bees. We read the version shown below by Susan Jeffers. I love this version-- it is perfect for preschoolers. The illustrations are beautiful with the right amount of words on a page. It also nicely tells the message of The Nutcracker while incorporating scenes from the ballet.


After we read the story, we talked about ballet and how it can tell a story. We also talked about the music in the ballet and learned a little of Peter Tchiakovsky who composed it. We looked at sheet music from the The Dance for the Sugar Plum Fairy.


Then we listened to a few samples of the music (noticing different sounds in marches, waltzes, lyrical pieces, etc.) from the ballet and watched a few scenes. The kids really loved the scene where the Nutcracker defeats the Mouse King.


Then we headed off to the tables for crafts. We painted nutcracker ornaments.

For math and science, we looked at walnuts and almonds noticing the difference between them. We cracked the nuts in half. It was exciting and a little scary for them!

Finally, book look. Christmas books under the tree... It doesn't get any better than that!

We ran out of time to make sugar plum treats (recipe here) and act out the story, which was a bummer. But it was still a fun week!