130- Celebrating Winter in the music room, no matter the teaching situation

The Elementary Music Teacher Podcast: Music Education

As a music teacher, you know the Winter months (especially December) can be the most stressful time of the year! You want to have joy during the Winter months, but it's so hard trying to meet the needs of your students while their energy levels go way up. Have you heard the phrase "if you can't beat them, join them?" This is kind of the philosophy you should have in the colder months when kiddos are having more inside recess. Or, maybe your students are learning virtually this year and you just want to do something fun to help them get up and move. No matter what your teaching situation is this school year, having fun in the music room during the Winter months is what it's all about. Your kids can still learn the objectives and concepts you're wanting to teach, but just in a new and fresh way. In this episode I'll share some of my favorite ideas that include:

• Read books about Winter and give students different action words they need to create movement to
  
• Have a sing-a-long or a listen along if they can’t sing
  
• Do holiday freeze dance
  
• Do a listening map like to sleigh Ride
  
• Learn about the different Winter holidays and celebrate them with games, stories, and songs
  
• Play Christmas carol charades. Pictionary, or even bingo
  
• Pass a present to the beat or incorporate it into any movement activity that uses a beanbag or a ball
  
• Any Nutcracker activity...there are truly so many
  

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Read the blog post that goes right along with this episode.

Here is the blog post I wrote about the Trepak Nutcracker activity.

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