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"!





Merry (Belated) Christmas

Looks like I did make a New Year's resolution this year - more blogging!!!  I apologize for my lack of post lately, hopefully I am back on track.  My class had an amazing few weeks of Christmas fun and I hope you can get a few ideas for your classroom.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, you probably already know that I don't normally do the same art projects year after year.  To make my list of "must dos" an activity has to be very special and most of our Christmas activities are just that.  Let's started with one of my favorites, our name Christmas trees.

I love watching the students carefully pick out their triangles.  Then the excitement in their eyes as they write each letter of their name.  Finally, the sheer joy as they glue everything together.  This activity always gives the children a wonderful feeling of success!

Our Christmas gift to our parents are always a hit.  This year I actually had a couple of parents "ask" if we would be making our special ornament.  That was seriously a proud moment for me!  Here is our ornament.

We dress the girls as angels and the boys are shepherds.  The children always love painting their picture frames.  Then, we have to make our wrapping paper!  Since it is "B" week we use balloons

 

and baseballs!

It was a little messy, but it was a lot of fun!

Here is another oldie, but goodie . . . our puzzle wreath!  Everyone glues on some old puzzle pieces to our circle.  It is always fun to watch the children "put the ugly side" up.  They think it is funny that we are not using the "pretty side".

After the glue drives we put on the green paint.

 

After the paint dries we added little red sequins. and a pretty red ribbon.

I know these look pretty on every one's Christmas trees!

 

We have worked very hard all year on our scissor cutting skills so everyone was ready for our next project.  First we cut strips of red paper and glued them on to a large circle.  Next, we added our hand prints and the results were wonderful!

 



Isn't this the sweetest peppermint?

 

Our next couple of projects really helped us to explain to the students the real meaning of Christmas.  The parents have not seen the first project!  It is being saved for our big end of the year art show.    I love this and children enjoyed it too.  The children enjoyed making the "sand" with some old make-up brushes and the star was painted with glitter paint!

 

You know every now and then a simple project is fun and since we had to rehearse for our big Christmas program, our classroom time was limited.  I think this next project was perfect!

I loved when one of m students said she wanted this to stay in her room so she could "see Baby Jesus all the time".

 

Okay, one more art project to close out our Christmas theme.  This is a new one!

 

Each child tore pieces of different colored green construction paper into small pieces and glued them on a triangle shape cut from poster board.  This was a great way for us to use up some scrap paper, review our shapes and work on our fine motor skills all at the same time!  We even used our fingers to make little glitter paint ornaments!

 

Thanks for visiting with us!  I hope you use some of our ideas and if you do please let me know how it turned out!!!