Winter Weather Week

Living in the south and studying winter weather usually isn't too exciting. Sure, we talk about snow but we hardly ever get to see any. Well, that seems to have changed this year! We actually got snow on Christmas Day this year! Something that has not happened since the mid-1950's. AND as an added bonus, we are out of school today because of an ice-storm. My house doesn't have much snow but the driveway and streets are one large sheet of ice. Good day to update my blog!

For Christmas a friend of mine, Laura (you remember Laura, the x-ray technician who visited us in October) gave me some instant snow.Once I saw what this was I had to go get more! Unfortunately, this was a hot item (remember we don't get snow in the south) so I ended up buying all the lady had. I have no idea what it is really made of but I think it is the stuff that is inside of a disposable diaper. Since most of the product information was written in Chinese, and I don't speak or read Chinese, I quickly gave everyone instructions not to put the "snow" in our mouths! With that one and only bit of information out of the way, we added 1 1/2 cups of water to 1 packet of instant snow! Let the fun begin!

We had such a good time, a messy good time, but still a lot of fun!

Next we talked about ice! What fun is just talking about ice? We had to make some ice. Everyone received a little cup of water (we used those little containers that instant drink mixes come in) and dropped a plastic fish in it. Some of the fish floated, some sank. Then we popped them all into the freezer. When they came out we talked about what happened to the fish. Some children wanted to rescue the fish so they started rubbing the ice. Soon our fish were free!

No winter discussions would be fun without a making a few snowmen or snowladies. Our class made dancing snowpeople!

We called them our "Dancing Snowpeople" because they would sway with the music thanks to some old yarn that held them together.

Of course no week would be complete without a good snack! This week we made "snowpeople" cookies! 'Nilla Wafers, vanilla icing, pretzels and some leftover Halloween candy sure do make yummy cookies!

One of my favorite things that we do in our class each year is the snowman! Yes, we make a snowman, well a southern snowman. It all starts by making lots and lots of snowballs. We use newspaper! Once we have enough snowballs we HAVE to have a snowball fight!

Lots and lots of FUN!

Then we stuffed some white garbage sacks and made our snowman!

Next week we continue our discussions about Winter and the animals who live where it is extremely cold!