Anyways, we had a great time at the ballet and Louisa was VERY excited to see it. It's a long performance and I knew it would be hard to sit through but she really didn't start to get antsy until the end.
So, for our Tchaikovsky composer study, we have been listening to Tchaikovsky's greatest moments (here via Amazon Prime music), and here for the Nutcracker music.
I must admit that Tchaikovsky has been much harder to listen to after Bach. My girls all grew to love Bach and his music. His is methodical and harmonious while Tchaikovsky's music is grand, very big, and all over the place. I am sure he will grow on us and listening to the Nutcracker sure helps. Kailyn also has been playing Swan Lake on the piano, so she loves him for that piece alone already. And, we didn't know that he composed the original Sleeping Beauty music!
We started off the term by listening to this program from Classics for Kids. They are always fun, short and interesting. I love the music added in to the program.
We also used this free printable last week (Nutcracker puppets to color) and the girls loved that. They colored them and cut them out while I read to them this book:
Honestly, I was expecting a little more about the creation of the ballet itself and there truly was very little mention of it. It was a nice book about that time of his life where he was traveling the world and creating ballets. We also have this book, which I am hoping will give a little more background to his life:
The other book we are currently reading is this Nutcracker version:
So far, we love it. It is not too simple (like so many of them are) and is the original storyline from Hoffman. The drawings are so beautiful, too! The girls are intrigued by the original story and it helps to make more sense of the ballet!!
So, apart from these things, we plan to simply listen to a lot of his music each day and I might see if I can find a good story book about his Swan Lake ballet, but that's only if there's time! :)
