Nutcracker Gross Motor Activities for Kids

Our 3rd book of this year’s Storybook Advent is The Nutcracker. It’s always been a favourite of mine and we are delighted to share with you some fun Nutcracker Activities and Crafts over the coming days. We’re starting off with getting the kids moving with this Nutcracker Gross Motor Activity for the Kids.

Gross Motor Fun with The Nutcracker

Hi! I’m Cassie from 3 Dinosaurs and I’m so happy to be here today as apart of the Christmas Storybook Advent. I love doing these activities.

This year we decided again to do a gross motor and book activity. These are simple activities to keep kids busy during the cold and wet time during Christmas.

It is loads of fun to turn a book into gross motor activities. And it is fun to see how creative kids can be in the movements.

We are doing a Nutcracker themed gross motor activities and this is something I love. I remember being a little girl doing ballet and helping with a production of the story. Now we have a fun gross motor and book activity to get kids loving the story again.

We have included affiliate links to some of the products and resources as an associate we may earn from qualifying purchases.

We have several Nutcrater books that we love to read. One of our recent favorites is The Nutcracker illustrated by Valeria Docampo but we also like the The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers We have done several Christmas gross motor activities and we love doing them. Several years ago we made a Christmas Gross motor Dice. The nutcracker was apart of it. Since then I have always wanted to do more for the story. And now we have those fun movements.

The Nutcracker Gross Motor Movements

The nutcracker

You can do this movement in several different ways. You can keep to a traditional march or you can switch it up. As you read through the book you can change it up. We start marching with straight legs and arms.

The Mouse King

We had fun doing the mouse king movement. It was fun to see how creative they could be. You get low to ground almost like you are going to crawl on your hands and knees but you keep your knees off the ground and move around the room as fast as you can.

The Snow

I always loved the dancing that was for the snow. We did some leaning from side to side with slow movements to be the small snowflakes falling to the ground. We stayed level while doing the movements but you could add slowly going to the ground.

The Sugarplum Fairy

I love it when the Sugarplum Fairy comes in. She is always so graceful. One movement that stayed with us for her was that she did a curtsy. So we had fun doing some curtsy of our own.

The Fairy dances

The book has several fun dances that it shows on a few of the pages and we hand fun trying to act some of them out. We love the Spanish hot chocolate picture best. We did some fun posing or tried to post as they did.

We walked on our toes around the room. We tried to tiptoe around keeping our feet as close together as we could. This was fun to stretch your arm up as high as you can and stay on your toes.

There are several leaping and jumping dances. We had fun doing some leaping around the room. We did high leaps and low leaps and just hand fun with the movement.

One of the last parts of the book is about dancing together and they spun around the room. So we did some spinning. We tried to spin in both directions and talked about which direction was easier to spin.

These are just a few of the movements you can do from the book.

Some other you could do are:

• Fall to the ground like the Nutcracker
• Grow tall like the tree
• Dance like you think the price would when he is freed
• Pretend to dance with fans
• Sway like the Arabian coffee dancer
• Mother Ginger – lifting the skirt
• Move like mother Ginger’s children

If you are looking for more Christmas activities check these out:

• Christmas Themed Gross Motor Dice
• Run, Run As Fast As You Can With The Gingerbread Man Gross Motor Dice
• 25+ Christmas Crafts and Activities for Kids

More Nutcracker Themed Activities for Kids

• Nutcracker puzzle rocks to make and then play with.
• Make your own homemade Sugar Plum Fairy Sensory Dough.
• Get crafty and create a salt dough Nutcracker Keepsake.