Winter Week Part 2

We were having so much fun during our wonderful winter week that we decided to extend it for a few more days.  I had a big surprise for everyone on Monday morning . . . . snow bowling!!!  During Christmas I had emailed everyone I knew and asked them to save me their gift boxes.  You know those flimsy little white boxes???  They made perfect bowling pins!  Everyone had a great time trying to knock down our "snow pins" and we even had a few strikes!!

Our art project on Monday was very special!  We turned ourselves into snow people.  Lucky for me my local Walgreens had a sale on their photo developing and believe you me, I took advantage of it! 

Aren't these the cutest things you have EVER seen???  Of course the snow was made with our fingers.  Boy, the Moms loved these!

 

I had another fun surprise on Tuesday!  I gathered all the scrap pieces of white construction paper I could find and wrote our numbers, colors and shapes on them.  Next, I wadded them up and put them in a big tub.

Everyone got to pick out a "snowball" and read what was written on it.  Next, (here comes the fun part!) you got to "throw" the "snowball" into the . . . .

snowman's belly!

 

We could have played this game for hours!  It was such a big success that we left him in our room and everyone played the game by themselves!  Now, that was a fun game!

 

It has been very cold here but remember, our school is in the "DEEP" south, so snow is something we hardly ever see.  But that didn't stop us from making more snowballs!  A little baking soda and water and suddenly . . . .

 

snowballs!!!!

we even made a snowman!

Okay, now here comes the fun part . . . . everyone took turns dropping their snowballs (or snowman) into a big bowl of vinegar!

 

Sizzling Snowballs!!

SUPER FUN!\

 

I am always looking for fun ways to help us review our shapes so during the winter months I made us some cute little "shape penguins"!  The children have had a lot of fun playing with them.  The star penguin is their favorite.



 

We read the book, Snowballs by Lois Ehlert and my class loved it.  It is a wonderful book about making a snowman from found objects.  Well, we had to make our very own snowmen/women from some things we found.  Aren't they wonderful?!?!?!

 

This snowlady has a bowtie pasta for a hair bow!

This snowman has a leaf for a hat!

Each child carefully picked out all the parts of their snowman/snowlady.  Just a note, we did not use our regular school glue, we used some Aleene's Tacky Glue that was left over from Christmas.  We had a great time!



Baby It's Cold Outside!

The great state of Alabama, as well as most of the country, has been COLD lately!  School started back for us on Tuesday!  But, due to the extreme cold, our school, like so many others, started an hour later.  This was NOT, repeat NOT a good way to welcome the students back from Christmas break.  Now, I know my students do not know how to tell time, but their little internal clocks were all off.  It took most of Tuesday to get things "normal" in my classroom.  It was fun listening to everyone tell me what they received for Christmas.  We giggled and laughed most of the day and listened to some "regular" music (that's what "T" called it since I didn't have Christmas music playing).  Our first fun art project for 2014 will be kept for our upcoming art show. 

We started by letting the children cut some white construction paper for our snow.  Next, we glued our snow onto a piece of blue construction paper and added our hand/arm print for the tree and our palm prints for our little snowman/girl.  It took just a few minutes for that the dry and then comes the FUN part, we added the snow.  Earlier that morning, I found an old tube from a roll of plastic wrap and covered it with hot glue.

  We rolled the tube in white paint and then rolled it onto our paper.

After everything dried, we mounted it to a large piece of black construction paper and added window panes!  A WONDERFUL Winter Window!

 

Tuesday was bitter cold down here in Alabama and since we aren't accustom to this kind of temperature we forced to stay inside for our recess time.  YUCK!  Well, not really!  I saw on one of my favorite sites Teach Preschool where the children were weaving through a rainbow.  I loved it of course (because I love everything on this website!) and wanted to try it.  Here is my version, we call it "Sneaking Through a Snowstorm"! 

WOW!  It was fun!!!!!

 

No fun winter themed week would be complete without talking about PENGUINS!!!!  I must say, our penguins are very cute.  His/her fat little belly was made white by sticking different white objects to contact paper.



 

Our Thursday was spent talking about polar bears!  Of course we read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear by one of our favorite authors, Eric Carle.  Our polar bear craft was taken right off of PINTEREST .  It was very simple but oh so much fun.  We really gave our fine motor skills a workout.

 

 

Since we were talking about polar bears, we had to play a polar bear game, right???  Meet "Pete, the Polar Bear" . . . .

He was made from a vacuum cleaner box (don't worry, I didn't get a vacuum for Christmas! LOL).  I covered him in white butcher paper, added ears, eyes, a nose and cut a hole for his mouth.  We talked about how polar bears like to eat fish, so I made us some little fish to feed him.

 

All the little fish were turned upside down on the floor.  They looked like they were swimming.  Each child picked out a fish and told us what written on it.  If you got it right, you got to feed the fish to the polar bear.  SUPER FUN!!!!!  I think we could have done this for an hour!

Our "Fabulous Fun Friday" was one of my favorites.  We started the day painting with ice!  On Wednesday, we all went to the kitchen to make ice paint.  Everyone stirred up little cups of paint and water.  We covered them with foil and stuck a popsicle stick in it.  On Friday, they were ready, no instructions were needed.

This one was fun because it had yellow and red paint in it.

The child who mixed it together didn't mix it thoroughly,

so we got to see the yellow and red paint.

This green ice paint was made with glitter paint!

LOVE!

They were ALL amazing!

 

As soon as we were finished painting we headed to make a snowman.  Now, by the time Friday came around, the temperature in Alabama was back into the 50's (ahhhhh . . . . winter in the south!), so we made our traditional "southern" snowman.  First, we had to make snowballs, and lots of them.

 

 

As you can see, we use newspapers!  We stuffed three large white garbage bags with old newspapers to make "Frosty"!

 

Hopefully, he will stay in my classroom for a few days.

No "Fabulous Fun Friday" would be complete without a little "cooking" time!  This Friday we made a snowman cookie. 

Everyone loved him!  We used one white powdered sugar donut (we cut it half),

 

added M&M eyes and a candy corn nose!  MMMMMM. . . . it was so good!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you come back next week, we will continue our unit on "Winter"!





Our Wild Winter Week!

We have spent two wild weeks talking about "Winter" and the letters "S" & "W".  As some of you may know, my class and I are located in Central Alabama and winter here is . . . well. . . ummmm . . . usually just wet!  This year has been no exception.  We have had a lot of rain.  So, I tried to brighten things up with a few fun snowy activities!
One of the very first things we did was make the cutest Shape Snowman!  Everyone picked out their very own different shapes to use.
;

It was so much fun watching everyone identify the different shapes!  I was reminded several times that "snowmen are round like a circle", and then they would pick out a square! 

We've made this next little snowflake for many, many years now.  Our craft stick snowflake.  The fun part of this craft comes when the children mix glue and white paint together.  Of course everyone has to touch it to see how sticky it is.  Next comes the real fun - you get to "dump" handfuls of Epsom salt all over your snowflake!  They actually have a little shimmer to them.

During the Christmas holidays I sent an e-mail to all my amazing teacher friends and asked them to save white wrapping boxes (the kind you get at the stores for clothes) and newspapers for me.  Of course my friends came through for me AGAIN!!!  I tapped the white boxes together with a little tape and . . . .

 

INSTANT FUN!  We now had the ability to build an ice fort!!  YES!  The boxes lasted about 2 weeks and then they started falling apart.  That was ok with us because by then we were moving on to something new.

 

Again, we don't really see snow in Alabama so we had our on snowball fight using newspapers!

  

For the past 4 years I have made our infamous "southern snowman" and for the last 4 years the great state of Alabama has brought home the National Championship trophy for college football (three for Alabama and one for Auburn).  Hmmm . . . I see a pattern!!!  Do you think the coaches should be giving me a percentage of their salaries????

Guess not!  Here is this year's official snowman -









And of course, here he is in his official "University of Alabama" gear!  To make things even better (could they be?) we were also studying the number 15 (as in this is the 15th National Championship for the University of Alabama).

Another fun activity we did to get our imagination going was to make a snowman/snowgirl with our palm prints. 

 

I love this activity because the children's imaginations really get a good work-out.  Besides picking out their favorite scarf, hat and buttons, the children decide on their own names for their snowman/snowgirl.  I always love seeing the different amounts of snow the children put on their creations.  By the way, the snowman on the left is in a "windy snowstorm"! 

 

Since last year's class had so much for with our "sticky box", I had to make another one this year.  (You can find the details of our sticky box here Sticky Box)  I changed things up a little and let the children used some old foam letters we had laying around. 









 

Everyone loved finding the letters of their names and their favorite colors!  It was such a big hit we are sharing it with our friends in the four-year old classes!

 

We talked about the letter "S" a lot during our Winter Week and we decided that our favorite "S" word was "SNOWMAN/SNOWGIRL".  We ended up our discussion about the letter "S" by making a "s"illy "s"nowman/"s"nowgirl out of toilet paper rolls.

 

 

I love the faces!!!!

 

We got a little "wacky" during our "W" week and painted with worms!  Don't worry, we didn't use real worms, we used some of my Dad's old plastic fishing worms that I brought home from the lake! I have a funny feeling he would love knowing how we used them because WOW, we had fun!



 

 

 

The end results were "w"onderful!



We had a HUGE surprise on Thursday, January 17, 2013 in Alabama . . . . we had SNOW!  Yes, real snow.  Do you know what happens in Alabama when it snows?????  We all leave our classrooms and go look at it! 

 









 

Yes, snow is THAT rare in Alabama.  Moments are this picture was taken we decided that we could not wait another second!  We went back to our classroom, got our jackets and headed out into the wintry mess.  OH THE JOY! 

 

Thank you for visiting with us I hope you COME BACK SOON!