Just a couple more things that we have done for our unit on winter and snow...
Have you ever made winter snowflakes using borax? It is pretty easy and the kiddos always get a kick out of it. It is a project that needs adult supervision, because you use very hot water with the borax. I have been doing it for years with my kindergarten students and have never had any safety issues. I have an adult mix up the borax and hot water in big buckets or tubs. I have never used an exact recipe, but you want the solution to become totally saturated with borax. We used about 1-2 cups of borax per gallon of water. The children make the snowflakes using pipe cleaners and we help tie one end to a string. Then we tie the other end of the string to rulers or anything else that you can set on top of the buckets. Dunk the pipe cleaners into the borax solution and leave them overnight or longer.
Here are mine sitting in the solution:
I got my whole class done in two tubs this size. It is a quick and fairly easy small group or center activity. Then you can have the kids write about how they did it, or how beautiful and sparkly the snowflake is. Or, you can just put them up in your classroom and enjoy them!
Have fun with this one!
This is another fun and engaging math lesson that can be incorporated into many different thematic units. If your school has pattern block die cuts, you can use them for little art projects and then have students graph how many they used for their picture. I have done this activity in brown for Gingerbread, and with lots of colors for spring/garden. You could do an abstract geometric design for any math lesson. This could be done with actual pattern blocks, or the stickers if you have them. Some classrooms have puzzle frames, you could do a puzzle and then graph. This is a great way to review shapes, counting, number, and of course, graphing concepts throughout the year. This project makes a nice bulletin board as well. If you would like to use these graph masters in your classroom you can find them at my Teachers Pay Teachers store, just click on the image or link below:
We have been enjoying our studies of winter and snow in the classroom. Here in our part of California, we do not get much snow. However, the children are fascinated by the idea of snow. So we have lots of fun reading about snow and winter. This bulletin board has a few of the projects we did during this unit. Below are more details about each one.
This was a fun way to make our backgrounds for the snowmen art look like a winter night sky. It is easy and can add lots of interest to a simple water color painting. It is a good idea to use a water color paper or thick card stock that will absorb the paint, and not wrinkle or warp when it dries. Paint as you normally would, but you want to cover the paper quickly. Make sure the paper is still WET when you apply the salt. Just sprinkle a course salt around on the painting and let it dry.
And then...
Isn't it cool?????
My kiddos did this in class as a completely independent center. Not all of them had the paper wet enough when the salt was applied, but they all made creative and interesting backgrounds for a cut paper snowman. The one below was made by a student in class who did have her paper wet enough when the salt went on.
Don't you just love the art of young children? This makes me smile.
Another project that will make you smile is the toilet paper roll snowman. So cute!!! I love art projects that can re-use TP rolls, because I sure accumulate lots of them. I got this idea from a pin by JT Photography. You can see her post with this and many other cute winter and snow ideas by clicking the link below. Theme of the week: Snowmen
Here are some of my student's snow-people :
And of course, we did the obligatory cut paper snowflakes. This was requested by my students because we read a book that showed this project. Two tips for cut snowflakes - use coffee filters because they are much easier to cut, and have them pre-folded for your little ones. My kids did this as an independent center, which did end up getting a little support from a parent helper. But, for the most part these snowflakes were cut independently by little hands.
So, with all this fun art work, we had to write about winter and snow! Some of the writing projects we did were making a list of "good stuff" to use when making a real snowman. We made a class book about all the signs of the season for Winter. We wrote about what our snowmen would do at night after reading Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. Below are a couple of our writing samples and some book pages.
You can't see his writing in the photo, but his reply to the prompt was : He would jump off the page!
So cute and creative.
Another cute response: My snowman drinks COLD cocoa. This was an idea presented in the story we read before writing. I love it!
Here are some of the book pages with our ideas about what happens in winter. I support the students with thinking of ideas and we read books to help build their schema about winter. Each child chose a different idea so that many were covered. Otherwise all the pages would be about snow or snowmen. In this book, the kids told me their sentence and I wrote it down on a strip of paper. Then, I cut it up and mix up the words and they put it back in order and read it. We do lots of class books this way in my room. Here are a few sweet pages from our book on Winter:
We also like to make a list of what you need to make a snowman. If you would like to use my list for writing about "good stuff" to use for making a snowman, you can find it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It's FREE! Just click on the image or link below:
We have been having fun in the classroom paying with this set of domino cards. We play memory or concentration games. We play matching games to numbers, tallys, and ten-frames. We also play a fun whole group game I call "Meet your Match". Each student gets a card. When I say GO, they have to look for another child with the same total number on their domino. Most find another student with the number decomposed in a different way. When everyone has found a match, then we sit and share what total number we had and what two smaller numbers it was made with. FUN!
You can download this set of cards for use in your classroom or at home! Just click on the link below or the image below:
