Maker Space Snowmen

I wanted my kids to make snowmen this year, but I wanted to change it up a little bit.  So, we used our Maker Space to create them.  It was a GREAT project.  The kids loved it and we were proud of our results.

This is the little maker space in my classroom...

You can read lots more about how I set it up and get other project ideas here:  Maker Space in Kindergarten 

I truly believe that the use of materials and problem solving involved during art projects make them sooooo valuable in the young child's classroom.  Having all the materials from our Maker Space available for these snowmen made them each as unique as the little learners who made them.

Here are some of the materials we used for this project...

Yes, my aide and I both collected little twigs for this project.  Although in my inspiration examples that I made for the kiddos, I didn't use twig arms.  I wanted to give them other ideas in case the twigs ran out.  Of course, only two kids ended up using the twigs.  Ha ha!

We also used, foam, felt, paper, beads, pom poms buttons, little hardware pieces, bottle caps, pipe cleaners, yarn, cardboard, and plastic recyclables.  I gave them very thick white card stock for the snowmen bodies.  I was available at the space to help with cutting through thick cardboard or craft sticks, and I was also in charge of the low heat hot glue gun.  Kids were working independently and were the design directors.  They told me where they wanted things, I was just gluing.  I try to keep my suggestions to a minimum so that the kids are in total creative control.

Here are a few more adorable snow people...

And I just LOVE this adorable snow girl...

We were just finishing up a measurement unit in math, so we also measured how many cubes tall our snow people are...

The kids had a little recording sheet to write how many cubes tall their snow person was.   After that, we all worked collaboratively to get in order from shortest to tallest .  The kids needed support getting in order, so I called out the measurement numbers and kids sat down on our big rug in order.  When two students had the same number, they had to compare to see which one was slightly taller or shorter.  It was fun!

When we had them all in order, we put them on a big table so they were ready to go up on a bulletin board.  It looked great!

We were all so proud of our project!  Measuring snowman art with cubes is nothing new.   Getting into order by height was a nice addition to the activity.  It was a perfect culminating activity to end our measurement unit.  It went well with our studies on winter too.

If you would like to do this activity with your class, you can use my little recording sheet if you like it.  It's FREE!  You can download it right here:  Snowman Measurement Recording Sheet

This is what the page looks like.  It has three recording sheets to a page.  Place for students' names and the space for recording the number is big enough for little learners.  Hope this helps make winter in your classroom a little bit more fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by...
Happy teaching!

Share the love

I am so happy to be blogging with my #kinderfriends this week.  We are sharing the love by donating 10% of our TpT sales from February 10-14th to a favorite charity.  Yay!  Our world NEEDS more love and kindness right now.  So, this makes my heart very happy. Some of us are giving you a FREEBIE too!  Keep reading so you can grab one from me.

This is a fun idea for your classroom that can also help spread the LOVE.  I did this a few years ago with a class that really needed some support to be kind and helpful with each other.  It is an acts of kindness project that I connected with our 100th day of school.  The challenge was for kids in the class to do 100 acts of kindness before we reached the 100th day of school.  We punched out 100 heart die cuts on our Ellison machine at school.  Then we wrote down the name of each child and the kind act as they reported to us.  You can also have the kids do the writing, especially for firsties.  They were so proud of these accomplishments through the process of filling the board.

Water.org is the charity to which I will donate for this event.  You can make a donation yourself by clicking on the link above or you can buy something from my TpT store and I will donate 10% of the sale price.  This event lasts from Feb. 10th -14th 2017.  I first heard about this charity about five years ago when I saw a bit on TV about it.  Matt Damon was lending his celebrity to shed light on this important issue.  I was shocked to hear the stories about how many people do not have running water and the impact it has in daily life.  I honestly feel that running water and sanitation should be rights of all people.  I also know how much this impacts public health for communities.  One thing I really love about Water.org is that they work with folks in each community to find unique and sustainable solutions that help them solve the water problems they face.  I will donate to this charity annually until this problem no longer exists.

Are you doing your measurement unit right now?  I want to share the love by showing you something I made for MY classroom.  I think it will be very helpful now and for the rest of your school year.  I made this pack of common core aligned measurement activities to help our little students with this important topic.  My kids are loving measurement!  And I am am loving that I have this EASY PREP pack to pull from anytime we need a little hands-on review.  I have a bag of classroom objects for measurement in my cupboard ready to go anytime we need them.  Then I just print and go for measurement math fun.  Here is a little peek:

You can grab it right here: Measurement Activities ~ Memorable Math EASY PREP

OK, lets get back to love and kindness and you can grab that FREEBIE!

This is a chart I made with my class earlier this year.  We were learning about friendship and being kind in the classroom at the beginning of the year.  After we did this, the kids got to draw a picture with their own idea of how to be a good friend.  This was early in the year, so I took dictations for students.  Here are a couple of adorable examples:

I just LOVE the drawings on both of these pages.  I love these sweet little students too.  This is a good time of year to review these norms with our kiddos.  You can grab this FREEBIE in my TpT store right here: Friendship Writing prompt paper.

Keep hopping along for more LOVE from the #kinderfriends

Go check out my friend Wendy right here: 1st Grade Fireworks

Thanks for stopping by!