Nutcracker Scarf and Wand Dances

I love December: Nutcracker time! My kids love it, and so do I. Every grade has a least one Nutcracker class every year, but primary grades focus on it the most. We focus on the story of the ballet first, and talk about the music. I focus on instruments and dynamics. Then we move on to dancing with scarves and wands.

Dance #1: Trepak

Ah, the good old Russian Dance. I love this one because it tires kids out. Perfect for a day (or a string of days) with indoor recess! Students are given 2 scarves, though 1 scarf will still work if your scarves are in short supply.

This dance is very simple. This is a good dance to practice with hands before you throw in the whole body, since the scarves are basically doing the same thing as your feet. For the A, we jump while we have our scarves go up and down. Then we kick while doing a similar motion with the scarves. For the B, we pulse our hands to the beat while we make a big circle in the air with the scarves. First we go clockwise, then counter-clockwise. For the bridge, we freeze on the strong beats. Below is the visual I use with the kids.

Dance #2: Chinese Dance

I love all three of these dances, but this is the one that is most likely to make me laugh out loud. This song has two basic phrases, so there are two basic movements: Frozen and swirling the scarves downward until you have your hands at your sides (think penguin walk) and tip-toeing around the room.

Dance #3: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

I love this song, and it is so iconic. But how do you get boys to dance to a “girly” song about a fairy? Tinsel wands, my friends. That’s how. I’m fairly sure they would be willing to walk around in sparkly pink toe shoes if it meant they got a tinsel wand. The wands are also easy to make: get a bunch of recorder cleaners that usually end up unused anyway, tie some long tinsel to the end, and cover it with tape. I covered quite a bit of mine, so students would know they shouldn't touch the wand above the tape line. I was worried at first that they wouldn't last long, but I still have wands from five years ago!

For this dance, students are put into two groups: the sneakers and the magical ones. The sneakers have scarves and the magical ones have tinsel wands. They take turns freezing while the other one gets to move.

When we are done, I always have kids fold their own scarves. Below is the echo song I use as we fold our scarves. (If you don’t want to have to use an echo song, you could always have them fold as you play March of the Soldiers instead.)