Winter Fun

Ok, so Texas really doesn't have much of a winter season... that didn't stop us from learning all there is to know about snow, ice, snowmen, and arctic animals.

Here are a few pics that we did.

During science time we put water in the freezer to see what would happen.  -we made ice, then we took our ice cubes and tried to melt them with the heat from our breath and from our hands.   

 We made snow by mixing glue and shaving cream and then we made a snowman.

 We also listed the steps on how to build one and displayed it with our snowmen. 

 On Fun Friday we made ice castles.  Each student was responsible for bringing in ice that they froze at home.  We talked about how we would get them to stick and how to build it.  Then I let them go to town.  We even added food coloring.  We watched them the whole day and we discovered that the room was too warm for our ice and it melted.

 This was our write the room activity.  This is the recording sheet.  The students had to go around the room looking for the picture and the word.  The original idea came from Julie Lee.  (she had one for her Gingerbread Man Unit on TPT) I modified it for our winter unit.

This is an example of what the students are looking for.  They just have to find and copy the word.  Clip art is from DJ Inkers.

We also managed to squeeze in penguins.  They loved watching video clips of them swimming and sliding around on the ice.  Here are our penguin projects.   Inside the penguin roll is our penguin facts sheet.  They used the tree map below to write in different facts.

 

This was in my science center.  They had to sort snowballs into groups by their size.  They also had to use tongs.  It was a great fine motor activity too.

I am sure there was tons of things I didn't get a picture of. :(

All in all, it was fun.  Up next----Weather.

Winter Math Centers

 Ok, so maybe they aren't really centers, but more of math tubs.  After my class is done with their independent math word they go and get their tub that they have for the day.  I changed the organization a bit after some practice.  I down sized the tubs and took the lids off.  Now all the students have to do is go to the designated spot with their tub and go to town.  While they are working I am able to meet with small groups going over various math skills.

I have 8 tubs and the computer as a "center" or "station".  At computer they work on math games and here is what is going on at the other tubs:

1.  I found this on pinterest (yes I joined and I am totally addicted).  It came from Lightning Bug Literacy.  I think it was some kind of learning kit - I thought it was a fun idea so I made my own.  The students just put the correct number of beads on the pipe cleaner.

2.  This is a sorting tub.  I actually create the mats myself.  Yea me!!!  Clip art came from the MS Publisher and DJ Inkers.  The bag of manipulative includes snowman, snowflakes, and mittens.  These I ordered from Oriental Trading.  They are really foam beads, but they work well for sorting.  I have them for a bunch of units.  The mats are for sorting by color, size, and shape.  There is even another one that says "I sorted another way."

3.  Pattern fun!  For this tub they have 2 things they can do.  One is from Deanna Jump and Julie Lee's Winter Centers for Math and Literacy.  

You can get yours by clicking on the pic.

 Polar Patterns came from that unit.  The students have to color and finish the patterns on the bears.  The second thing they do is fill in the pattern mats with again the winter foam beads from Oriental Trading.

 4.  Measure Up!  This was an activity I found on a Little Miss Kindergarten blog posted for free.  Here's the link to the original post.  I added a basket with cubes, links, and buttons so that they could measure length, height, area, and perimeter. 

 5.  Snowman Stamp - They have to put the snowball numbers (1-10) in order and then they can stamp the numbers on their stamp sheet.  I used the number stamps from Lakeshore that are dotted so that they can trace the numbers once they are done stamping.

 6.  Falling Snowflakes - these mats I got from a Pre-k Pages.  They put the right number of snowflakes on the mat.

 7.  Snowball Numbers - I don't have a picture of this one, but what they do is pull a number out of a snowman bag and then they write that number on a white board.   This is a number writing and reading practice tub.

8.  I found these 10 frame mats for the teen numbers and thought ---um perfect!    These came from Under the Alphabet Tree.  If you haven't been to her blog, check it out NOW.  She has tons of great ideas.  Here's the link to the mats.  I used real marshmallows and told them there would be no eating!  So far so good.  :)

So that's pretty much what is happening right now.  I'll probably keep them the same for a week or 2.

If you are interested in anything that I created...leave me a comment and I'll work some magic.

New Years Fun

This came from Mrs. Lee's kinder kids and she found it on Little giraffes.

Black eyed Pea 2012 for some good luck.

I even ended up making black eyed peas for them on Friday.  They liked them!  I even tried some. (still not my fav)  It was a great start to 2012.  It was really nice easing them back into school just going 2 days.  Next week should be interesting.

Friday I stayed at school late finishing my math centers and redoing the tubs.  I went back to small tubs for easy handling.  I will post pictures soon. 

1st day back and...

my kids were sooooo good today.  It made for a very easy day.  It is a very short week for us - 2 days, but I managed to get a lot done today.
    We started off talking about the "hot topic" : what everyone got for Christmas.  We sat down on the carpet and just chit chatted for a while.  I had them talk to their partner and then when we were done I asked them what their partner said.  It worked very well cause we had a few that didn't listen - then we were able to review listening and speaking rules.

  Next was resolution time.  We read this book:

The kids loved it.  It was very cute.  We listed different resolutions we had and wrote ours down.

We also make cute little NY's kids - pic tomorrow.

We talked about how black eyed peas are good luck and we decorated 2012 with a bunch so that we could have good luck too.  Some years I make black eyed peas for them to taste, but I decided not to this year.  (they are not my fav -YUCK!)

I'll post pics tomorrow - we were so busy I didn't take any.  Oh, did I mention I also got a new student!

Happy New Year All!