Have you ever had one of those activities that's a win-win? It's something that works so well that you keep bringing it back year after year. 
That's how I feel about this resource: Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. I've done this activity with second graders for about 15 years now. It integrates a classic piece of holiday literature with music and visualization.
I've always loved the music from The Nutcracker. When my daughter was 5, I figured she was old enough to go into Boston to see the Boston Ballet perform the classic. We read a few versions of the story so she'd know what to expect, put on our very best holiday dresses, and drove into the city.
Since I knew the story so well, I brought the CD into school and shared it with my students. I wrote this summary of the classic story, played the music while the children visualized what it must look like, and illustrated the different parts of the story.
Every year, the children loved the activity, which practiced valuable skills such as visualizing, summarizing, and sequencing. Plus, it exposed them to classic holiday literature and classical music. Of course, you can't miss it when the setting is The Kingdom of Sweets!
A couple of years after seeing the production in Boston, my daughter had the opportunity to audition for a production of The Nutcracker. She was in the youngest group, and the little ones had a very small part, but it was priceless. She went on to perform in The Nutcracker 3 years in a row before life just got too busy with other performances. However, the story of The Nutcracker will always be near and dear to my heart.
Enjoy this freebie: The Nutcracker story for Visualizing, Summarizing, and Illustration! It's one of my favorites!
