Looking for some ideas for winter music class activities? I have five great winter music class activities ready to go for you. Whether you are looking for winter music activities to get your kids moving or listening activities to take a deep dive into a classical winter music piece, I am excited to share with you some of my favorite activities from my own music classroom.
Kindergarten Winter Music Activities
Kindergarten music activities almost invariably involve movement for me. Those little bodies just need to move. And luckily, moving is a great way to learn music! Here are two of my favorite kindergarten winter music activities.
First Snow by Trans-Siberian Orchestra
First Snow by Trans-Siberian Orchestra is an excellent classic rock song to inject some energy into your classroom. If you have never heard of Trans-Sisberian Orchestra before, I highly recommend checking them out. Not only do they do some great rock and rock takes on classic Christmas songs such as Russian Dance by Tchaikocksy, but they also have some great rocking versions of Beethoven classics and others.
One thing I like about this song is that it is winter themed, not holiday themed. It can work in January or February as well as December. Also, the beginning does such a great job of setting the mood of a gentle first snowfall (although the music starts rocking pretty hard after that!).
I have a scarf movement routine that I like to do with my kindergarten and first grade. It is ideal for the week right before a break, when students have a little extra energy they need to get out.
Feliz Navidad
This winter activity to Feliz Navidad is always a hit with my students. My Spanish speaking students love to have a little bit of pop music in their own language, and everybody recognizes the song and can sing and dance along. With all these things going for me, it isn’t hard to sell a dance and play activity for this classic Christmas song.
We use this song to learn about:
- ABA extended form
- Go and stop (verse and refrain)
- Classroom instrument recognition and correct use (maracas)
- Steady beat
Winter Music Activities For Active Listening
If you are trying to focus on musical concepts with your older students, such as form, musical timbres or dynamics, a listening map is a great way to visualize many of those elusive elements and make them clear to your students. Here are some of the listening maps for music that I have and some suggestions on how to use them in your classroom.
Winter Listening Maps
Here is my latest set of Winter Listening Maps.
This set contains listening maps for:
- Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – Peter Tchaikovsky
- First Snow – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- Skating – Vince Guaraldi
- Sleigh Ride – Leroy Anderson
- Troika – Sergei Prokofiev
Listening maps are a great springboard for movement activities – like this fun movement activity I created for Troika by Prokofiev.
Nutcracker Listening Maps
My Nutcracker Listening Map Set is one of my TOP SELLERS – especially around the holidays.
This set contains listening maps for:
- March from the Nutcracker
- Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
- Russian Dance
- Chinese Dance
- Arabian Dance
How To Use Listening Maps in Your Classroom
While there are infinite ways to use a listening map in your music class, here are some of the main ways I have used them. Comment to this post if you have a fun suggestion of your own. I would love to hear it!
First Glance
I often use my listening maps in music as a first glance for students to wrap their head around the form and other musical elements happening in the song. This makes it SO MUCH easier to reference different sections if we want to discuss what we heard or add on movement to different sections, etc.
Listening for Specific Music Elements
I have often created worksheets based on my listening maps. In fact, as I am writing this blog post I am in the middle of revamping all my listening maps to include several active listening worksheets to go with the listening maps. Hopefully by the time of this post, all of the listening maps mentioned in this post will also contain some really helpful worksheets for active listening. If not, I would still make the purchase. You get free access to all upgrades as I upload them (and I make sure to send a notification when I’ve done mejor updates, so you won’t even have to check back!). Nobody has time for that!
Framework for Movement
It is so much easier to get a feel for the sections and main events in a song when they have been visualized on a listening map. Then I can create movements for the class. Or often I can create lessons where the students create the movements themselves.
Close Read
Does your district do close reading? I know that the district I used to work in was doing a HUGE push for close reads. I was resistant at first because although I am a team player, I didn’t really want to have the focus in my lessons be sitting down and reading a text. Not very musical. But what if I told you that a close read doesn’t have to be done with traditional text? You can use the MUSIC ITSELF as a text to analyze. What a game changer!
If you are interested in learning about using music as a text for a close read (or if your admin is making you do it), check out this blog post where I go into detail on how to do a close read lesson in music class. It honestly completely changed my views on close reading in music class.
Winter Music Activities for Elementary Students with Movement
Ready to move with some of your upper elementary students? Here are a couple fun activities that my students love.
Skating Activity
I love the song Skating by Vince Guaraldi. First of all, it’s nice to get different genres represented, even in holiday music, so having a jazz trio is a nice change of pace.
To introduce this song, I would probably have students listen along with my listening map.
We could make some observations about the form and other things that we hear in the music. Then it’s time to learn some movement. Since we are listening to Skating, of course the movement is going to be … skating!
If you’ve never done paper plate skating in your classroom, your are in for a treat. Each student gets two paper plates that will be their skates. Students stand with paper plates underfoot and do the following motions.
Movement Activity to Skating by Vince Guaraldi
Part A: Skate to the steady beat
Part B: Spin one direction, then the other
Piano solo: Skates become snowflakes. Students take them off and do floating snowflake motions of their choice around the room
During the transition (repeated piano part with downward melodic direction) students transition back to wearing skates
Trepak & Sleigh Ride
Looking for more movement? I have a couple other winter music activities to recommend, but they aren’t my activities, so I can only send you in the right direction to find out more. First is Trepak from The Nutcracker. The Gameplan series has a great movement activity for this song, which I believe is in the fourth grade volume. It involves jumping, hand clapping and marching around and is a great way to get out some energy during the holidays.
A slightly more involved Gameplan activity is the musical form movements to Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson. This activity involves a lot of body percussion and really helps engage students in the piece. I used to own the Gameplan series at one of my old schools, but don’t own it personally and honestly I have no idea which grade level this one was located in, so I guess this suggestion is only moderately helpful. If you are interested, I would recommend posting on an Elementary Music Facebook group and asking. There will 100% be some who can tell you which volume to find it in.
Looking for More Winter Music Class Activities?
Here are a couple blog posts you might enjoy:
March from the Nutcracker Music Form Video
Nutcracker Ballet: 7 Awesome Ideas To Add To Your Nutcracker Lesson Plan
