Trepak from the Nutcracker

Hi all!! Happy December! Here in Colorado it hasn't felt much like Christmas until last week. It's been unseasonably warm, but we're making up for it now!!

Today I thought I'd blog about a parachute activity that I learn sometime in my teaching that I do with the Trepak/Russian Dance from the Nutcracker

The kids love it and it's great to teach form ABA form and when we use it with the older kids we talk about the bridge from the B to the second A section.

Before we use the parachute we doing some movement in the classroom where they follow me:

A Section:

Beats 1-4: giant leaping jump, straight up

Beats 5-8: another giant leaping jump, straight up (arms up, legs like you're attempting to do the splits in the air.... but you could do "Rock star" jumps or your own take on it)

Beats 9-16: "firecrackers" in your hands, where you start with a fist and explode the fingers out, for 8 counts, the micro beat of the song)

Repeat this, so you perform it a total of 4 times (it'll match what you hear).

"B" section:

"Wacky Jacks" to the beat- this is what my pe teacher calls them, they're like jumping jacks but you put your right arm parallel to the ground and the left arm straight up while the left leg kicks out and the right leg is on the ground then you hop and switch so everything is vice-verse.  This is done for 16 macro beats (big beats, until you hear the "bursts" of the bridge)

Bridge:

Do those BIG jumps on each explosion of sound, so it's two slow jumps, two medium speed jumps and 4 fast speed jumps)

"A" section:

Repeat above but add the wacky jacks at the accelerando at the end and finish with a big, giant jump.

Then we learn the parachute movements, sans the parachute.  This doesn't take long to learn as they're familiar with the music and the motions match really well.

Then we add the parachute (sorry in advance for the poor resolution):

My kids love to add the snowballs or baby grinches from Oriental trading. It's GREAT fun.

If you're looking for a parachute, this is the parachute I use. Simply click on this affiliate link:

I'll be honest that since I'm not teaching right now, my student teacher is soloing and I'm slowly taking back over, we haven't done much with the Nutcracker.

I did, however, make this set of playing cards for the Nutcracker- you can use them for Old Maid and Go Fish and work GREAT in a sub tub or for centers (and were surprisingly fast to print and cut out!)

click on the images for more information

There are colored cards....

And black and white cards

These turned out so well I'll be making a Peter and the Wolf set and a Carnival of the Animals set for my sub tub!!

If you're looking for more Christmas ideas, check out these bundles, three are from this year: 

The Christmas Songs from Around the World has rhythm and melodic games for every melodic and rhythmic element plus song PDF and games for each song.

The 25 Games for Christmas and Beyond is finishing up the 10 games for Christmas and then will have winter and anytime of the year games.

And this is the second year I'm doing a Bursting Christmas Day Bundle- these are things you can use all year, NOT Christmas related at all!

And to celebrate our last week before break, this weekend only my Christmas MEGA set is 75% off!!! That's a savings of over $50!!

I hope you all are having a WONDERFUL December!!

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Jingle Bells Dance

Confession time: I'm sometimes a Sunday night planner.  Okay, a lot of times I end up planning on a Sunday night.  Now, I have my year, trimester and month plans scoped out of what I want to teach.  What I find myself on Friday nights doing is putting down how I'm going to teach it and the song literature and activities that go with that.

My first are practicing ta & ti-ti and of course "Jingle Bells" a good song for isolating ti-ti ta ti-ti ta on the "jingle bells, jingle bells" part.  Now, pardon my rush but the only version of Jingle Bells on my computer is in augmentation of how I sing it and have my kids read it:

We're going to be doing some reading work of ta ti-ti in the high concentration portion of the lesson and deriving the ti-ti ta ti-ti ta on "jingle bells, jingle bells" is going to be my transition into the "change of pace" portion of the lesson, which will be a dance that goes to Jingle Bells.  

There are two ways that I do this dance.  The easier version uses a parachute and the more advanced version has concentric circles with partners.

Here's the parachute dance directions:

Formation: circle, everyone holding on to the parachute.

Action:

Verse (32 beats total)

Beats 1-4: heel-toe-heel-toe with the right foot (dashing through the snow)

Beats 5-8: four slide steps to the right- like a side-ways gallop (in a one horse open sleigh)

Beats 9-12: heel-toe-heel-toe with the left foot (o'er the fields we go)

Beats 13-16: four slide steps to the left. (laughing all the way)

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats

Chorus (32 beats total)

Beats 1-2: with parachute in hands, three pats on feet to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 3-4: three pats on knees, to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 5-8: four pats at waist, to the beat

Beats 9-16: lift the parachute over the head.  I call a color and those students with that color let go of the parachute, turn around in place and re-grab parachute.  Now, if your students are really careful those students on the colors called can run under the parachute to another spot of that same color.  This is the FUN way to play! ;)

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats.

When I do this with older kiddos we do it in a concentric circles.  

Formation: concentric circles, facing partners (one in the outside circle, one in the inside circle)

Action:

Verse (32 beats total)

Beats 1-4: heel-toe-heel-toe with the foot that leads in the counter-clockwise direction.  This is the right foot for the outside circle and the left foot for the inside circle (dashing through the snow)

Beats 5-8: four slide steps counterclockwise- like a side-ways gallop (in a one horse open sleigh)

Beats 9-12: heel-toe-heel-toe with foot that leads in the clockwise direction (o'er the fields we go)

Beats 13-16: four slide steps clockwise. (laughing all the way)

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats

Chorus (32 beats total)

Beats 1-2: with right hands, partners pat each other's hands three times to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 3-4: with left hands, partners pat each other's hands three times, to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 5-6: with both hands, pat three times as in the first two steps.  **This will NOT match the rhythm

Beats 7-8: clap own hands three times.  **Again, this will NOT match the rhythm

Beats 9-16: join hands with partner and do a full circle turn

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats, with the exception that in the last step, after the full circle turn everyone takes an extra step to the left and then has a new partner.  This has a really nice flow and even the older kids enjoy it!

Have a great day!

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Linky Party: Five Favorite Pins

Thanks to Aileen Miracle, at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room, for hosting this Linky Party!!!

Here are a few favorite pins of mine (not just from this month):

1.  "Dancing Rings":

I'm so lucky to teach in a district that is comprised of so many Kodály music teachers.  We are such a tight knit group and for the past few years have done a monthly "Make-n-Take" night.  One of the things that we have done are these ribbon rings.  They work so well on concerts and are so easy to make!!  We used shower curtain rings from the Dollar Tree and I found ribbon here. 

2.  "Who's Next Board:"

This I use mainly for when there's a substitute.  I swore I was going to use it more this year, but with a student teacher I haven't had the chance. My plan this year is when ever there's a turn in a game to use it- that way the kiddos are always given a "fair" chance rather than me or another student deciding who's turn it is.

3.  Googly Solo-Singing Eyes:

I don't know if that's the name, but I would love to make these this year.  So, these are on my "to-do" list.  What I'm going to use them for is solo singing.  John Feierabend sells similar ones in his vocal exploration box, but I thought these would be a fun variation.

4.  "Shake Dem Halloween Bones" PPT:

I LOVE this book!!!  My great friend, Terry Ann, and I found it in our school book fairs my first year teaching, when I taught in Salem, OR.  I made up my own melody for it (I need to write it down), but the kids LOVE it and it's for fun steady beat and for teaching singing vs. speaking voices (I swear, I'll write out my lesson for it!)

5.  Light Sabers

There's directions on the pin of how to use them for Solfege Wars (a John Feierabend idea, but I've never seen it presented.  I have an idea of how it can work).  I use them for the Rhythm Wars files that I created and are available at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

I hope you all are having a GREAT week!  

Happy Hump Day!

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