Snow in the Classroom? What to Do?!

Spring break is only 3 weeks away, so wasn't I surprised to wake up and see a world of white outside my window!  

My daughter quickly got busy creating this!

Snow usually melts quickly here on the West Coast, so when you finally get some, you have to act fast!

We decided to give students the opportunity to play in the snow right in our classroom, as well.  
The smart little guy in the photo decided to wear his mittens! 

Here are a couple of their creations.  

Our Mr. Potato Head pieces came in handy, but if you didn't have those, you could also make snow creatures using buttons, popsicle sticks, and other items from around the classroom.

Here we set out a bin of snow with some paint and brushes.

And on the next day, we changed things up a bit and created a Sno Cone Shop.  

We laid out bowls and spoons, paint and brushes (to create the "flavours" on top of the snow), and sparkles to act as "sprinkles".  It was definitely a hit!
(Note: The towel in the photo is not too cute for a Sno Cone Shop, but it was good for absorbing spills.  Sometimes practicality trumps beauty! :))
      

Once school ended, it was a great time to enjoy the snow again outdoors.  Sledding anyone?

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Snow Much Fun - Snowman Art, Number Games, Stories and More!

Today's a sunny day and it feels like spring, but I know we'll be back to cold weather and icy windshields by tomorrow.   There's still lots of winter left to come!
And lots of time left for some fun SNOWMAN activities.

For art, we made ripped paper snowmen. 

The children could either rip the white paper themselves or use the pre-ripped pieces provided.

We encouraged everyone to first fill in the pre-drawn circle with glue, and then stick on the white "snow" pieces.  It helped make the process a little faster.

For centre time, we put out our Snowman Alphabet Match Game.  

The background sheet with the snowman bodies was taped to a magnet board.

A button magnet was glued onto the back of each snowman's head with a glue gun.

A sheet was provided to help students match the lower and upper case letters, or the correct snowman "head" to the correct snowman "body." 

For students who needed additional help, there was also a coloured stripe on each snowman's hat that was the same colour as the matching snowman's mittens.  The photo below is not too clear, but it will show you what I mean.

At the centre tables, we also put out our Snowman Number Match Game.

I used three sides of the folder when making this game so that I could fit on number lines to match with #1-10.  

Each snowman has a piece of peel and stick velcro on the back and the children get to "stick" it onto its correct place on the number line.  

At the writing table, students completed a mini book about Snowmen called "This is Snowman Big."

The mini book was based on a magnet board song I taught them at circle time.  

On each page of the book, the children could draw a face for the snowman and then colour his hat and scarf.  

Most of these items were part of the Winter Unit
I made over Christmas break.  It was nice to come back to school after the holiday and be ready for January!  

If you're looking for some awesome picture books to accompany the Snowman theme I highly recommend the following:

Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright

And Snowmen at Night by Caroline Buehner

They're both snow much fun!

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Brr...It's Cold Outside! Celebrate the Season with these Fun Winter Activities!

Fuelled by cookies and chocolate, I have finished a 45 page Winter Unit during the holiday break from preschool.

Nothing like having some ready-to-go activities to ease the re-entry back to work!

And I'd like to celebrate the New Year by offering it to one lucky winner!  I'll be choosing the winner from my e-mail subscriber list on January 1st.  If you aren't a subscriber yet, sign up now so that you have your chance to win!

Check out the unit below!  

This unit includes lots of fun ideas for the remaining winter months.  Christmas may be over, but there's still lots of winter fun to celebrate! 

This pack would be suitable for Preschool, as well as Kindergarten.

If you'd like to take a closer look at the 8 activities in this resource, CLICK HERE to view it on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Happy New Year everyone!  I'll enjoy my last week of chocolate indulgence before "resolution time!"  

The contest winner will be announced on January 2nd!  Good luck!   

Make Your Christmas Bright with these Fun Preschool Activities

Week one of our countdown to Christmas is officially over!

I'm going to celebrate by curling up under a blanket and watching a sappy Christmas movie on Women's Television.

  And I'm going to bring my poor hubby along for the ride.

We'll see how long he can last! 

Goodness knows I've watched my share of Iron Man movies.  Fair's fair! 

As for Christmas in preschool, here are a few of the activities we did at center time this week.

For the activity below, students needed to count the buttons on the snowmen and then place the snowmen on the matching number.  

My favourite prop in the photo is the piece of wood.  

It may sound strange, but I totally cherish that green piece of wood. 

It is a great stand to use for lots of different activities throughout the year.

 I've even carefully marked my name on the bottom just in case someone tries to "make off with it."   :)

To prepare the wood for my popsicle stick activities, I used the biggest drill bit in my set to drill the holes.

  The piece of wood is one that I found on the beach.   

Yes, I'm a true scavenger!  

 Free is good!

To see another handy use for this cherished piece of wood, click HERE. 

 You'll see it at the end of the post.  

Another Christmas activity at center time this week involved organizing Christmas images from smallest to largest on the magnet board.

 And finding the snowflake shadows for the Snowflake Shadow Match game. 

Unfortunately I forgot to take a decent photo of the Snowflake activity, but you can see it on the right of this photo.  

I glued the snowflake shadow mats to the red file folder and then the children placed the coloured snowflake images onto the matching shadow.  

For a better view of this item, check it out in my Preschool Christmas Unit.  

It is one of 8 fun activities for center time and circle time.  

Lots more going on next week.  I'll see you again for Christmas Countdown Week #2!

How to Paint your Preschool Windows for Christmas

Decorating our preschool for Christmas is now underway! 

This week the children had fun decorating our tree with toys and making a plastic chain link garland.

Our tree may not make the front page of Better Homes and Gardens, but the kids like it.  And it's a work in progress.  

Each of our classes will be adding their own personal touch.  

Foam ABC letters coming up next!  

We also decorated our classroom with the children's names "in lights."  

The students traced the letters for their names onto paper light bulbs, glued on a variety of 

sequins and glitter, and attached them to a paper wire.

We hung them around the room in line with the Christmas lightbulbs that we painted onto all of our windows.    

Here's a close up of the painted bulbs.

I'm starting to learn a few things about window painting which has improved my results compared to previous attempts.  

Painting on windows is not like painting on a canvas I've learned!  

One great strategy I picked up was to draw the images onto the window using a thick black Sharpie.

If you decide to do this, don't worry.  I tested it and it wipes off fairly easy with a bit of water. 

I also learned the value of a tracer when you are repeating images.  

Fairly obvious, but for some reason I didn't think of this last year and all of my lightbulbs ended up being different sizes!

Once all the bulbs had been outlined, I just painted in the shapes with children's watercolour paint.

  

For those of you who want to take your window painting to the next level, the other tip I picked up was to outline the images with white paint at the end.  

I may try that someday, but not today. 

 It would look awesome, but outlining 50 light bulbs would be quite a commitment!

But I digress!  As for the children and their learning... 

Our blocks are now festively wrapped in paper for the season.

Just make sure you watch the children like hawks on the first day!  Opening these "presents" was extremely tempting for some!

We set up a winter scene in our sensory bin.

This bin includes cotton "snow," pieces of logs, snowball ornaments, sparkly trees, and a variety of forest animals. 

And here we are starting a Days 'til Christmas art project.

Here is a close up of the Christmas Snowman Counter.  

My co-teacher saw it on Pinterest (I'm so sorry but I don't know the link!) and we thought it was too cute! 

 Sorry for the side view!

Ah, looks like the nose needs a little adjustment.  I think there are now about 19 days left!

Enjoy the Christmas craziness!

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