The Nutcracker Printables and Activities

Part of the holiday season for a lot of people is going to see (or even to perform in) The Nutcracker. It’s fun to read the story even if you don’t have access to a ballet company or another way to watch it live.

To extent the fun of that story into learning time, Deb from Living Montessori Now has collected a bunch of Nutcracker printables and activities you can use at home or in your classroom.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Nutcracker day, where you would read the story, listen to the music (and dance, no doubt), color your own nutcrackers, use real nutcrackers as a greater than/less than sign, make puppets and more. You could even have nuts for a snack if no one is allergic.

(As an aside, aren’t these snowflake ballerinas from krokotak the cutest? My little ballerina is going to love them!)

Do you do any Nutcracker-related activities in the holiday season? I’d love to hear about it.

[Photo: Living Montessori Now.]

Several countries have a day set aside to honor and recognize their inventors, but Nov. 9 is a special one that’s known as Tag der Erfinder in German. It’s celebrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and it falls on Nov. 9 because that’s the birthday of Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr is widely known as an actress but there’s a lot more to her story. You can get a little of it geared to little kids in the Little People, Big Dreams book Hedy Lamarr (32 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by Frances Lincoln Childrens Books, suggested retail price $15.99).

The book explores her birth in Austria and how she spent time when she was young coming up with inventions. She became an actress, married an arms dealer, made her escape to America and became an actress again.

But she also helped develop a frequency-hopping signal device for airplanes that was used by the Americans and their allies during World War II. That technology became the basis for wireless technology such as wifi and GPS.

While Inventor’s Day is a great time to learn about Hedy Lamarr, you can take this opportunity to check out books and do little studies on lots of different inventors. If there’s an inventor or an invention your child is particularly interested in, that’s a great place to start. It’s fun to think about all the things we use every day that didn’t always exist; someone had to invent them!

For a start here at Craft Gossip you can learn more about Garrett Morgan, who invented traffic lights; Maria Oroso, who developed a clay oven that could cook food without electricity; and more female inventors and scientists.

And for more general inventors’ fun, check out this inventors word search from Fun Findery (and another from Let’s Do Puzzles) or take a quiz on inventors and their inventions from Flanders Family Home Life.

Have you read?

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