Stories, Songs and Rhythms about The Winter Time - Music

As the weather continues to get colder and the snow begins to fall we have began to look at music that relates to winter and the weather it brings. Across the grade levels we have turned our attention to this theme. I wanted to share some of the stories, songs, rhymes, movement activities and games we are learning in music!

Book: The Busy Little Squirrel 
Music: Vivaldi's Autumn Adagio mvt.2
Song: Hop Old Squirrel
We added more verses:
Hop, skip, jump, crawl, swish your tails etc...
Game: One child sits in the middle of the circle with their eyes closed. Four- six friends hid acorns all over the room. We sing the song with the verse 'Hut for food' and while we are singing the child who was sitting in the middle must find as many acorns as they can. Instead of singing the number of acorns they have found, the child must play the number on an instrument. The rest of the class listens and silently counts the number of sounds they hear to determine how many acorns their classmate has found! 

Book: The Snowy Day
Music: Instrumental Morning has Broken
Mvt. Activity: After reading the story the class recalls the sequence of what Peter did when he went out to play. The class then acts out the story silently while listening to the music.
Song: What shall we do when we all go out?

Game: One child must act out something that they like to do in the snow while we sing the song 'what shall we do?'. At the end of the song we must guess what they were doing.

We had lots of ideas  of things that we could do in the snow:
Make snow angels, skate, build a snowman, make snowballs and lots more!










Book: The Snowman
Music: Theme We're Walking in the Air
Dramatic Play: What if you were a snowman discovering everything for the first time? With a partner, one person pretends to be the snowman. The snowman discovers an objects (a flower, pencil, scarf etc..) pretending they are seeing it for the first time.. Without words the other person must show the snowman what to do with the object.


Song: Winter Snowflakes

Song: Who has seen the wind? (originally a poem by Christina Rossetti)

Rhyme: Where oh where did my mittens go?
Are they somewhere in the snow?
I've looked high and i've looked low
Where of where did my mittens go?

Music: Vivaldi Winter
Mvt. Activity: Move through the room while listening to the music. Use high and low movements, when the music stops, freeze and make a shape with your body