Snow Much Fun!

We are having so much fun with SNOW in our little California classroom!  I grew up in San Francisco and I remember being fascinated with snow as a child.  My sweet class is too!  I suppose if we had to deal with the realities of severe winter weather it might not seem so special, but it is a fun topic to come back to after our winter break.  We are reading great stories, and enjoying our winter snow theme as we work on teen numbers, cvc words, and color words among other things.

Yes, that's right, those are paper snowballs!  We are using paper snow balls for reading and writing cvc words and matching teen numbers with ten frames and base ten blocks.  My kiddos are LOVING it!  The pictures above are from a center activity where students had to choose a snowball,  say the picture word, and write the word on the snowball recording sheet.  The recording sheets came from my Print and Go! Winter Math and Literacy (NO PREP).  You can get that in my TpT store.  This is what the recording sheet looks like:

My Print and Go! Winter pack includes sheets just like this for sight words and numbers too!  We will be using them all winter long.  I am so glad the kids had fun with this activity.  These are the two products I made for our snowballs.  Just print and crumple up the papers into "snowballs".  Then you are ready for lots of winter classroom fun. 

The other  super fun thing we do with the paper snowballs is have snow ball fights!  Yes, that's right, and they are lots of fun.  A snowball fight takes about ten minutes and it is a fun learning game for your whole class.  You need to start with an even number of kiddos and the same number of matching snowballs.  You could use cvc picture and matching words or numeral and matching ten frames, etc.  I split my class into two even groups sitting across from each other on our big rug.  I pass out the snowballs so each student has one.  These are the rules I give for snowball fights in my classroom:

1. When we have a snowball fight are we really having a fight?  No, it is really a fun game.
2. Wait to throw your snowball until I say GO.
3. You may not throw your snowball hard.  Do a gentle toss.
4. You may not throw your snowball directly at a person.  Just toss it in the air.
5. You can only throw the snowball one time.
6. Once everyone has tossed the snowballs, calmly and carefully pick one up.
7. Unfold your snowball and try to find a classmate that matches your number, word, etc.
8. Once you find your match, sit down in a circle so we can all see your number, word etc.

When everyone is sitting, we quickly go around the circle and partners share the word, number, or other concept they had.  My kiddos are begging me to do this activity every day!  You can easily make your own snow balls for your class with sight words, addition or subtraction problems with an answer, or other concepts.  There are lots of possibilities.  These activities do use some white copy paper, but I would easily trade a ream of  paper for all the fun my kiddos are having.  I hope you will give it a try with your class.

We also did sweet snow art for our January calendars.  We just used sponge stamps with white paint and white glitter.  White glitter is the perfect addition to make any white painting look like sparkly snow.  You can get the monthly Calendars for Number Writing in my TpT store.  We do one every month for number writing and pattern practice.

Yesterday we read Snowballs by Lois Ehlert and my kids made lists of all the "good stuff" they would use to make a snowman.  You can get this snowman list paper for FREE in my TpT store.  Just click on the link or the photo above and it will take you to get it.

We have also been working on color words and my sweeties have been making an emergent reader to go into their book boxes.  I will try to add some photos when they are all done.  You can get the cute mitten book here: Colorful Mittens Emergent Reader.

I hope you have some winter fun in your classroom this year!  Stay warm.
Happy teaching!