Aurora and the Magical Toy Box

Aurora Orchestra believes in music for all: we present vibrant orchestral adventures to people of all ages across the world, and believe that all children should have access to brilliant orchestral music. We believe passionately that music can have an enormous impact on a child’s life and education and we want to support teachers in helping children to develop a relationship with music from an early age.

Welcome to Aurora and the Magical Toy Box! Featuring music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker and an original story by children’s poet Kate Wakeling, children are invited to step into a magical world of music and imagination, where they will have the opportunity to:

• watch a performance by Aurora Orchestra
• explore characters and storytelling through music
• sing
• explore pulse, rhythm, pitch, timbre and orchestral instruments
• use classroom instruments
• explore music as part of free-flow time
• prepare their own performance
• share their learning at home

Teachers can choose to use the resource as a continuous ten-week project using our fully-planned scheme of work, or they may prefer to use the resource to develop their own schemes, using the activity and audio libraries to source appropriate musical activities for children in their classrooms. Those working in specialist-SEND settings can use our bespoke scheme-builder to create 10-week units of work for their classes, taking into account the individual needs of learners.