Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts

Tuesday, 19 February 2013

All Kinds of Winter Stuff

sunnydaytodaymama

We’ve had more snow than usual this winter, so wintery activities have been on my mind.  Although it’s my least favorite season, we’ve always tried to make the most of it and create fun memories.  Anyway, I thought it would be nice to review some of my past wintery posts and link them here.  

1.  Snowman Sensory Tub.  My #1 blog post (according to my stats) is January Sensory Tub: Build Snowmen087

2.  Make Paper Snowflakes--I make these every year, and the kids enjoy helping.  I give step-by-step instructions in this post.snowflakes

3.  Winter Sensory Tub—We did this one last winter.039

4.  Snowman Play DoughTot School—Week 14 AND Tot School—Week 15 (the snowman play dough can be found in both posts—just scroll down) 010

snowman playdough

5.  Fun for TotsTot School Winter Theme 

Mitten Match:Photobucket

Winter Clothes Dress-Up:Photobucket

Snowman Art with cotton buds (cotton swabs):Photobucket

Warm vs Cold Sensory Tray:Photobucket

6.  Snow Sensory Tub—This tub had real snow and was a huge favorite with all 3 of my kids. 063072

7.  Winter Storytime—We have several winter books we enjoy together.  This post has our top choices:  Favorite Wintery Books038

Hands On:  As We Grow has featured 32 snow activities (including my snowman sensory tub) from different blogs.  Lots of snow fun here!

I’m linking this post to All Year Round Blog Carnival: Winter at Sunny Day Today Mama.  There are more links here than I can possibly look at in one day, but it’s the place to go if you are looking for winter-themed ideas.

Sunday, 3 February 2013

Preschool Corner: Weeks 14-17



Alphabet Time:  Along with our Easy Peasy—All in One Homeschool lessons for letters N-Q,  Gabriela made these letter creations (from Totally Tots):057 024 053 050

Other Letter Activities:  We went kind of overboard on P week!

P is for Parrot (idea from DLTK):

068 071

P is for Penguins:  We read penguin books, and Moriah was kind enough to let Gabriela play with her stuffed penguin.  We also watched a few clips from March of the Penguins.  She also played with the penguins from our Antarctica box (the same ones in the snow sensory tub).058

P is for Pigs & Pancakes:  We read If You Give a Pig a Pancake (Laura Numeroff), colored a picture of the pig (HarperCollins Children), read Pancakes, Pancakes! (Eric Carle), ate pancakes, read other pig books (including If You Give a Pig a Party), and watched Charlotte’s Web.023

P is for Pigeons:  We read 3 of Mo Willem’s pigeon books that I had, and we looked at his website (Pigeon Presents!).  I found the finger puppets on the website.  Later in the week, I ordered two more of his pigeon books and read them when they came in (The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!).  I found the stuffed pigeon at a yard sale last summer (I was so excited)!099 104

P is for Polar Bear:  We read books about polar bears including three of the Little Polar Bear books by Hans de Beer, watched The Little Polar Bear on DVD, and colored some pictures of Little Polar Bear (Coloring Book).  I found this tracing page of polar bears for Gabriela to do (Making Learning Fun):126

P is for Panda:  We read these panda books, but we didn’t do any activities (we were a bit overloaded with the other P animal activities):

102

After P week, I was a bit relieved to reach Q!  We did read a few books (The Missing Tarts, which is related to the “Queen of Hearts” rhyme, and The Keeping Quilt), and Gabriela made a quilt Q (Our Crafts ~N~ Things) and a queen toilet paper tube craft (DLTK).078 076

Story Time:  To see what books we read during these 4 weeks, click HERE and scroll down to numbers 230-300.  Some of these went with other themes, but I also have several books related to letters N-Q. 

Books on Tape:  Gabriela has learned to listen for the tone and to turn the pages herself.  I’m working on getting her to turn the pages at the corners instead of in the middle.  We listened to There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow, Owl Moon, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and The Mitten.

Math: 

Using square tiles to make different patterns: 042 

Ordering objects from smallest to largest (using our nesting dolls from Ukraine):165

Comparing sizes of containers in relation to amount of water (things like the amount of water staying the same even when poured into a different-sized container, how many cups of water are in the pitcher, etc.):002005 006 087  

Themes: 

The Mitten (Jan Brett)--I’ve seen a lot of theme units online for this book, but I finally decided on several pages from the book unit at Homeschool Creations.  Here’s a matching game we used:

120

I also found some animals to color on Jan Brett’s site.  I cut out two mitten shapes, hole-punched and stitched them together with yarn, and then Gabriela colored designs on them.  She put the animals into the mitten as I helped her retell the story.115

Winter—We did a lot of winter activities, made even more wonderful by the fact that we had SNOW!  Gabriela played in the snow, helped make a snowman, drew a picture of a snowman, ate snow with syrup, played with a snow sensory tub (with scoops, penguins, and colored water), put together a foam snowman, watched snow melt, watched Frosty the Snowman, watched The Snowman, talked about animals in the winter, and read lots of winter books!041 053 snowman jan 2013 050 029 032 038 050 059 061 072 089 095

5 Senses: Sight—We played “I Spy,” looked at hidden picture books, looked at Braille and talked about vision impairments, made hand shadows, colored a picture of an eye, and looked at our eyes in a mirror.  096 122

5 Senses: Hearing—Read books about noises and sounds, identified sounds she heard (with her eyes covered), discussed hearing impairments, and watched the Animated Hero Classics DVD on Helen Keller.  We’ll probably do a few more activities on hearing next week, as I didn’t get to do all the activities I had planned.

Opposites—We’ve been practicing opposites and reading books about opposites.  We also played “Mary Contrary,” which is like “Simon Says,” except you do the opposite of what you’re told.

Before Five in a Row: 

Angus Lost—We looked at the illustrations and noted how one page portrays Angus silhouetted against the night sky.  So, we talked about silhouettes and made the one below.  I traced and cut it out, but Gabriela glued it to the paper.  031

Also for Angus Lost, we talked about getting lost, and we looked at different dog breeds.  Isaac has some dog breed posters in his room.  I explained to Gabriela how some dogs have jobs they’re good at.  We picked out our favorites from each poster, and we also found the Scottish Terrier, which is what Angus is of course.096097

Caps for Sale—We put all kinds of hats on each other’s heads and counted them.  I first saw this activity in the book Math Play!  I thought it would go well with Caps for Sale.029

The Snowy Day and The Carrot Seed—Mostly, we discussed the stories and looked at the art styles used.  We’ll do more activities with these books our 2nd time around (I’m doing each of my BFIAR books twice this year, since I only have half of the books required).

Trays:  I finally cleared off the bottom shelf of our workbox station to put trays on for Gabriela.  Although we’re not in Tot School anymore, there are times when I’m busy with Isaac and Moriah.  I set up trays for Gabriela to choose for those times.  098

Here are the two trays she played with the most:

Play dough--This is kind of late, but I made her a Christmas tree to decorate with beads.  She also enjoys using cut-up straws with play dough.  We currently have red, yellow, green and orange homemade play dough.048

Imaginative play—Instead of making her a set this week, I got out my tins of “stuff” and let her choose what she wanted to put on her tray to play with.  038 059 085

Outings:  We spent a weekend in the Lake District with our church.  One afternoon, we went on a walk and got to go inside a small cave:100

I’m linking this post to “Preschool & Kindergarten Corner” at Homeschool Creations.

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