1st Grade

1st Graders have been learning about ballet and listening and responding to the music of the Nutcracker by Pyotr Llyich Tchaikovsky. In the Nutcracker March, students act out the form of the piece dancing as soldiers or mice and using their hands and arms to move like snowflakes during the frenzy of activity in the middle section. In the Russian Dance, or Trepak, students are using scarves to accentuate beats and patterns throughout the music. Students moving to Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy are using their magical wands to paint musical pictures using both the steady beat and special phrases to inspire their movement.