What is there to do in the Winter?

Our adventures continued with all the fun activities that happen in the Winter. How many can you think of? Sledding, Skiing, Ice Skating, Curling, Hockey, Snowboarding, Bobsledding...

Of course we can't forget one of the best things to do on a snowy day...build a snowman! Ok, so we're not really building a snowman, more like decorating him. I found a Frosty the Snowman image & printed it out on card stock, which we used as a counting game. Simply roll the dice and put the number of buttons on Frosty.

Another snowman math activity was a clothespin matching game.

Our do-a-dot B is for Bobsledding.

Writing practice, taking a skier home. Found at 2Teaching Mommies who have a great Winter packet. 

Alphabet practice with ice skates, B really liked this game.

Actually the next two are probably the ones B enjoyed the most. First we used a straw, coffee stir stick & a skier print out. Tape the skier to the stir stick, insert into straw and blow. This will launch the skier across the room. Next we took B's tape measure and found the distance from where he started to where the skier landed. He had so much fun with this, I would catch him sneaking into the school room to play with it...and it wasn't just to shoot the skier across the room, he was actually measuring it every time! So he can't read numbers over 10, but he'd pick out a random number and say that's how far it went.

I'm sure this one would have been a repeat too, but I only made one. I didn't know it would turn out to be so fun. We printed out a hockey player and stuck him in a Dixie cup filled with water and froze it. While this was mostly a fun game of sliding the hockey player back and forth; it was a great way to teach friction, then as the ice melted (from the friction) we talked about why the table was all wet, where did it come from. This and all of the other printables on this post are from makinglearningfun.

Sliding the hockey player to Daddy...can't you tell how much fun he was having!

*if you do this activity, make sure to make multiple hockey players and be careful

once they start melting the slide fast and will break when hitting the floor.

Hope you enjoyed our Winter Unit as much as we did.

Do you have any other fun Winter activities we can try?

Chinese New Year

We added a little variety into our Winter Unit this week. In celebration of the Chinese New Year we spend a few days learning about China. It's the year of the Dragon, in China the dragon is quite special and very much revered. The dragon symbolizes power and wisdom.
To begin, we found China on the globe & looked at the map of China. I found a great book on celebrating the Chinese New Year at a local teacher supply store. It was the perfect amount of information for a preschooler.

 This is the national flag of China. It consists of a red background and five golden-yellow stars. It represents revolution. I gave B a star punch to make the small ones, the large one was pre-drawn.

We also learned about the Great Wall of China. Although B refers to it as 'Wall of China'. We used our building blocks (only the red ones) to build our own Wall.

 Practical life skill: B also tried using chopsticks to sort the red & yellow pom poms. It took a lot of practice but he finally got it.

 B's chopstick technique...not perfect, but it worked.

The Lantern Festival or Yuanxiao Jie is a traditional Chinese festival, celebrated on the 15th of the first month of the Chinese New Year.

The festival marks the end of the celebrations of the Chinese New Year.

This is a fun festival where people flock to the streets with a variety of lanterns under the full moon, watching lions or dragon dancing, playing Chinese riddles and games, and lighting up firecrackers. We watched a YouTube video on the dragon dances, since we didn't make it to the actual celebration in town. We also attempted to make our own lanterns, which turned out to be a little harder than I expected for B. Cutting multiple straight lines was not something he was interested in.

Then of course what would a study of China be with out eating Chinese food. We went to our favorite local Chinese restaurant and enjoyed a tasty lunch.

 

Hope you enjoyed our trip through China. We'll discover more about China when we focus on our global units.

Animals in Winter

This week we are learning where the animals go in the Winter.

Do they Hibernate, Migrate or Adapt? This sorting activity is from itsy bitsy learners. We also used our animal photos to find the homes (caves, burrows, trees etc.) that animals lived in the Winter. I forgot to take pictures of that. ;)

Hibernation game to help with number recognition. Sorry no link on this, I made it using clip art & a few other programs I have.  

We went ice fishing for numbers & letters. I ran out of time, but was going to make a box that B actually had to 'fish' through and make it white like ice; but he enjoyed it this way too. 

Polar animal patterns

Polar animal footprint matching game. You can find all the polar animal activities here.

Our creative art this week was super fun and simple. We made porcupines with playdoh & toothpicks. This was all B's work...I only supervised, isn't he cute! I did show him a photo of real porcupine and we talked about the animal, he was very interested in the quills.

Another free form art activity was painting with white paint on black construction paper, the simply gluing google eyes to it. Afterwards I asked him what animal he had painted he picked porcupine. I think I can see the quills. This is a great way to demonstrate abstract art.

Science experiment - how do animals keep warm when it's cold out? We felt an ice cube & talked about how cold it would be to live on ice/snow. B says 'we couldn't do that we'd freeze, we need warm clothes.' Then we felt a baggie with shortening in it. It was warm and thick. We talked about how animals had blubber just like this that helps keep them warm.

Then we saw what happened when we held the 'blubber' and put the ice on it. Did we feel the cold or was it warm? This was such a simple experiment; B is still talking about it.

Begins with Polar animals clip cards.

Our book this week was The Mitten;

it's about animals that try to make a mitten their home...all squeezing together. I found these cute print outs on janbrett, we used them as an interactive story by putting them on Popsicle sticks.

Do you have any fun activities about hibernation?



Snowflakes are falling...

"Snowflakes falling, magically making everything white" -  Music Together

We started January and our Winter Unit with snowflakes & Winter weather. Each week we'll learn something else new about the Winter season.

Our cutting activity, making traditional paper snowflakes. B wasn't quiet sure about why we were folding & cutting paper and what it had to do with snow. The look on his face was priceless when I opened it up and showed him what we'd made. 'SNOWFLAKES!!!...Let's make more Mama!'

Practical life - Placing snowflakes into a container with tweezers.

Using our counting cards to count snowflakes.

Letter tracing with buttons.

A few of our books on Winter



Luke 2:11

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

B learned this verse this summer thanks to Backyard Bible Club and I honestly didn't think he'd truly remember it very long. Once again, he proved me wrong. He knows it, well and many of the Christ focused Christmas songs, he'll ask, " is it talking about Luke 2:11...A Savior has been born to you?"

We do a lot of fun things during the Christmas season and while we "believe" in Santa, we ultimately know the true meaning of Christmas and have had some fun learning about the birth of Jesus.

The Fisher Price Nativity set, B really loved this last year but this year mostly plays with the creche itself because it plays Away in a Manger...and he loves music. He has learned to sing part of the song; which has to be the sweetest thing ever heard...to hear a preschooler signing Christmas music. At least to this Mom ;)

We also played with our felt Nativity and used our Christmas Story rhyme (found below).

I love the detail and simplicity in these Nativity characters. They remind me of ones from when I was in Sunday School.

You can find this free nativity printables at activityvillage.co.uk

Christmas Story Rhyme:

The angel came down

from God to say

that Mary will have a baby on Christmas Day.

His name will be Jesus

God's only Son

He will show that God loves everyone.

Mary and Joseph traveled far,far away.

When they got to Bethlehem, there was no place to stay.

God gave them a stable filled with cows and sheep.

Jesus was born,

and on the hay he did sleep.

The shepherds were watching their sheep at night.

An angel came and caused a great fright!

"Don't be afraid. I have good news!"

Jesus is born for you and you and you

The angels sang and the shepherds ran

 to see the baby God sent to man!

Then wise men came following a special star.

All the way to Jesus,

they came from afar.

They knocked on His door,

then they knelt on the floor.

Then they gave their gifts to Jesus.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours...may it be blessed and may you experience the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas crafts

There are so many fun activities to do during the holidays, it's often hard to choose which ones to do without overwhelming myself or B. Here are a few we did...

Reindeer - We traced B's hands & a shoe onto construction paper. Add some googly eyes, a red pompom and a little mouth & say hello to Rudolph.

We also made I spy ornaments, with the above material. I wanted to use the large glass ornaments but I waited to long to buy them & only the small ones were left. They worked out well though, and are just as cute. The only problem was trying to find things that would fit in the tiny openings of these ornaments. I will be looking for the larger ones next year. 

For more examples of these, check out playathomemom3 she has some awesome ideas!

*These are glass so be very careful if you attempt this project.

One hanging on our tree...and yes that is a paper chain; over 70% of our tree is decorated in some form of paper ornaments.

What would Christmas be without a gingerbread house? Actually it's a first in our house, neither my DH or I have done one...so it was a new experience for all of us. While more time consuming that I realized, it was fun. We let B decorate it how he wanted on the roof & asked for other suggestions (Should we add a door/window etc.); then Mommy did a few finishing touches.

Considering we weren't trying for perfection, I think it turned out pretty cute.

We even did a Santa craft, that B enjoyed; I wish I could remember where I found this (if it's yours, let me know & I'll give you credit).

Once you color and cut out the pieces, glue the Santa to a tongue depressor and you've got Santa going up & down the chimney. B is saying 'ho,ho,ho'. Unfortunately B only got to play with it for a day, I guess the dog thought it was fun yummy too...the next morning, the only thing left of it was a small piece of the tongue depressor.

Christmas cookies

One thing our family loves about the Christmas holiday is all the yummy desserts. :)  While we all opt for the more chocolaty of these, we can't forget how much fun it is to make Christmas cookies. Even fake ones, yes I said fake cookies. I hadn't quiet got all the ingredients to do our baking, but when I pulled out the cookie cutters B was so intrigued with all the different ones. He was having fun just playing with them. That's when I decided, we could make fake ones out of the things I had on hand.

I traced the cookie cutters onto card stock, but any paper would work.

Then the decorating began...

I was a little afraid of giving B glitter, especially in the house but he did really well and having a little tray made clean up easy.

Adding stickers...love the finger dexterity practice, he was so patient and persistent.

I guess we were having TO much fun, because even Daddy decided to join in the fun. I secretly think B thought this was the best part of making them. Daddy doesn't always get to join us for activities since he's working or traveling...it's nice when he can!

Some of our 'sprinkle' cookies.

A few of our sticker cookies.

Making fake cookies doesn't really satisfy the COOKIE need, so once we got all our ingredients,

 we had to make the real ones!

I meant to take some pictures of the actual 'making' of the cookies, but didn't really have clean hands to hold a camera. ;) So instead, here's B decorating them...I think he would have covered every inch with the sprinkles if I hadn't stopped him. He was having a blast making these cookies.

Some of his creations.

These aren't cookies, but are SO yummy and thanks to my SIL, Amy for sharing the idea. Super easy and perfect for a preschooler to help with, just watch out for warm pans & chocolate.

In case you are a big cookie fan or a big Sesame Street fan, then there's a book you have to read:

B LOVES this book, it's all about baking cookies. He can actually 'read' it, and by read I mean he's memorized it and can read it back to you...which happens quiet a lot. Once he learns a book, he wants to read it to us. While this one is not a Christmas book, it fits in perfect with all the baking, plus it shows where we get sugar, flour and other ingredients from so it opens up discussions on farming, plants and other changes food goes through to make an end product.

Happy Baking this Christmas!