Holidays Around the World – and a Give Away!!

D. J. Inkers has done it again!!    Take a look at this wonderful set of clipart –  http://www.djinkers.com/clipart/christmas/holidays-around-world-clipart-collection.html.  I used this clipart to create the activities throughout this post.

They are also giving away one of these wonderful clipart sets to one of my readers for FREE!!!

All you have to do is at least 2 of out of 3 of these options:

1) Join one of DJ Inker’s email newsletter lists.

http://goo.gl/8OS0D4

2) Follow one of DJ Inker’s boards on pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com/djinkers/

3) Like DJ Inkers on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/cuteclipart/

To enter this contest please leave a comment on this post

by  Monday, December 12

telling me which  of the above options you completed!

Holidays Around the World is a very popular theme in lower elementary grades.  There are lots of wonderful ideas online, and on Pinterest.   I love the idea of creating a Passport to be stamped as you learn about different countries.  Many people shared how they made a suitcase to collect projects that represent different celebrations.  There are countless great suggestions, and using this clipart would enhance any of those ideas.

I am sharing a book I created that highlights five countries, and includes a couple of pages about each one.  I would use it, not only to teach about the holiday customs, but also to reinforce features of informational texts.  I used to read lots of expository books about different countries and their holiday celebrations, so I thought it would be a good time to reinforce the parts of information books.

I wrote a previous post about how I taught the parts of an information book:  https://dbsenk.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/informational-text/, check it out if you have a chance.

I would use this book along with lots of fun activities that help children get a glimpse of the different customs and celebrations.  I would probably spend a day or two on each country, and have the children do the pages that go along with it.  I would like the children to label things in this booklet that are usually found in informational books.  On this page I would have them label the title and the author – which of course would be their own name.

I might run off these words on a different color of paper.  Then the children could cut apart the words and glue them next to the text features.  Or I might just have the children label the parts of informational texts by writing on each page.

I included pictures to help the children make associations with each country, and to help the emergent readers recognize the different countries.  Another great thing about DJ Inkers clipart ‘Holidays Around the World’ is that it includes fun facts about each country that lend themselves to great discussions and simple activities.  I highlighted some of those facts on a page about each country.

This page features bold text, so I would have the children add that label.  I would also have them color or highlight January 6 on the calendar and talk about how the children have to wait that long to get their gifts!  It goes along with how the Three Kings brought gifts to the Christ Child.

On the day we were learning about Mexico I would bring in a simple pinata, and an artificial poinsettia plant.

The children could use phonetic spelling to label the stick, pinata and candy.   Then they could also add the word ‘labels’ to show they recognize that text feature.

It would be so much fun to have the children leave their shoes outside the classroom door and ask a friend to put a small toy or candy into each child’s shoe.  You might include a simple T graph about whether the children’s families have put up a Christmas tree.  You might even have some fun with a good luck pickle.  I might laminate a copy of the pickle and put it on a table of quiet or helpful workers.  Throughout the day you could move the pickle to reinforce good habits.  This page would also be labeled ‘bold print.’

It would be fun to do lots of gingerbread activities while talking about how it is an important German tradition.  The children could color this page and label the caption.

I would get out a globe to discuss how Australia is in the middle of summer at Christmas time.  I think the children would love to hear about how Santa might give his reindeer a rest and use kangaroos to pull him around instead.  Again the children would label the bold print.

The children would label Santa, the surfboard and the waves on this page.

Here is more bold print, meant to emphasize the important words on the page.  I think the children would love to hear how Scandinavian children hear stories of little gnomes who are supposed to be taking care of farm animals, but get into mischief instead.  They might each create a gnome to take home and add to their own Christmas tree.  It would be fun to bake some buns and have a cup of “glogg,” too.

The children would label the caption on this page.  I also would make a chart comparing what Scandinavian children put on their Christmas trees and what we usually put on our trees.

Of course we always need to be sensitive to the customs and traditions of the children in our class.  In this book I was highlighting Christmas traditions, but I always spent time discussing other celebrations like Hanukkah and Kwanza.  ‘Holidays Around the World’ includes great clipart for those holidays too.

Here is a pdf version of this book.

holidays-around-world

As I introduce the customs of each country I would post a picture to help remind the children of our discussion, and also so they could see how to spell the name of each country.

At the end of our unit I would ask the children to draw and write about which country they would like to visit at Christmas, and I would give them space to explain why.

I had so much fun using Holidays Around the World.  Please take the time to check out their website and enter the contest for your own copy!  D.J. Inkers is also having a special sale for the holidays (Dec. 1-12, 2016)!  It’s called 12 Holly Daze Sales, you don’t want to miss it!  Here is a link to their website;  http://www.djinkers.com/ and sign up for their email newsletter at http://goo.gl/8OS0D4  .

Happy Holidays!

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How To Build A Snowman

I love digital cameras!  Younger people probably take it for granted, but I am so delighted that I can take as many pictures as I want, pick out the best, share them with my friends and family and keep them on my computer – all for free!  I remember the days of deciding whether to buy indoor or outdoor film, paying to develop the pictures, and usually paying for double prints so I could use the pictures different ways – then excitedly opening the envelope of prints just to see that some were out of focus or didn’t capture what I wanted to save!  Yay for technology!

Pictures are a great tool for motivating children to read and write, especially if they are in the pictures.  When our family goes somewhere or does an activity, I often make a book for them to read and remember our fun.  The first thing I do is print out pictures and ask the children to put them in the right order.  Sequencing is such an important skill, they love to retell the events as they put them in the right order.  Sometimes I ask them to tell me what is going on in each picture, and I write down what they say – using their words for the book.  Owen is beginning to write on his own, in Kindergarten I would ask the children to write a sentence for each picture.

Here is a simple book I made showing the steps in making a snowman.

I used this idea to introduce the idea of writing How To books in Kindergarten.  When our class did a special activity I would intentionally take lots of photographs showing the sequence of events.  Then as a whole group – or in small groups – we would sequence the pictures and write a caption for each page.  These made very popular books for our reading center.

Children love to read books about themselves too, so wben I make books for my grandchildren I usually use their names in the text.  For example, I would write “Owen helped Daddy roll a big ball of snow.”  My grandchildren read and re-read these books.   You can make books about anything you do – making cookies, watching a cement mixer, going shopping, planting flowers – just get out your camera and make memories!

The Iditarod

This weekend marked the beginning of the annual Iditarod dogsled race in Alaska.  There are so many resources online that provide wonderful ideas and activities to study this with your class.  Here is one I found:

http://iditarodblogs.com/teachers/2009/12/13/creating-an-enriched-iditarod-classroom-environment/

Every year Target also sponsors a “Teacher on the Trail” and there are tons of resources online about these teachers, and giving ideas across the curriculum using this theme.

One year our school used the Iditarod in combination with “March is Reading Month” and we charted how many books the children read at home using sled dog pictures and an enlarged map of Alaska.  There are so many skills that fit in very well – mapping, great vocabulary, history, study of weather, temperature, and time.  I also liked to emphasize the whole idea of a team spirit.

After I explained the basic story of the original Iditarod to my class we watched the video Balto in small pieces.  This is an animated version of the story.

I got this information from Wikipedia:

Iditarod info

Here is a book my Kindergartners made.

We looked at a map of Alaska and the original trail they took to bring the serum to the sick children.

We used the word “musher” and talked about the clothing they would need to wear, and all the jobs the musher would have to do to take care of the dogs and run the course.  They put their own face onto this musher.

We talked about the type of dogs that run in the Iditarod.  We talked about the booties that they wear to protect their feet from the ice.  One year I found a teacher online – I think it was part of the Target Teacher on the Trail program, and she sent out a box of resources for teachers to use.  She also sent me a bootie that had been used by a dog in a race.

We discussed and made a list of all the supplies the musher would need to take for this trip that lasted more than a week.  This “sled” was a bent pipe cleaner stapled onto the page.

We talked about the job of the lead dog, and how the team had to work cooperatively.

I brought in a child’s snow sled and tied a long rope on it in a loop.  I had a parent take 4 children at a time out into our hallway, which was carpeted.  Each child got a chance to act out every role – the musher who sat on the sled, the lead dog, and a team dog; and they pulled each other down the hallway.

I sometimes adapted the text of this book to fit a little higher readers, but it was always a pattern.  Sometimes it might have read:  This is the __________.    OR  The musher was in the race, the dog was in the race, the sled was in the race, the team won the race!  I wanted all the children to be successful reading it, and the Iditarod vocabulary was what I was really focusing on.

Portrait of a President!

I know this is late for another President’s Day project, my computer was out being fixed!  But I loved how this project always just looked like Kindergarten.

 

I used to make it on large 12 x 18 inch paper, but to save paper I reduced it to fit on 9 x 12, and I liked it just as well.

I usually pre-traced the oval on white paper, but I didn’t always mount it on the black.

To prep this project I traced the ovals (or copied them on white paper) and cut 3 x 3 inch squares of black paper – each child will need 3-4 depending on how narrow they cut them into strips and how much hair and beard they want on their project.  The hat brim was 1 x 4 1/2 inches.  The eyes were just free cut too.

Here is a copy of the project you can print if you like:

Lincoln pdf

And here is a page of the multiple copies of the poem if you’d like to add that at the bottom of the portrait.

poem

I hope all of you who had a few days off for Presidents’ Day or winter break, or snow; had a restful fun time with your families!

I can’t resist – here is a recent picture of my granddaughters!

 

Their big brother currently does NOT like to have his picture taken but here is a picture of all of them with their Dad.

There is nothing more delightful in the world!

Hearts, Friends, and Valentines

During the season of Valentine’s Day I liked to include activities that emphasized friendship.  We usually read The Crayon Box That Talked, and did an activity – as well as some of Leo Lionni’s books – It’s Mine, 6 Crows, and Swimmy all include good friendship lessons.  There are tons of books on friendship, and this is just a nice time of year to make sure you take time to read some of them and talk about friendship.  It fits in well with a study on Martin Luther King, Jr. too.

We learned a song about friends, to the tune of You Are My Sunshine – and I taught simple sign language motions to go along with it.

Friend song words

Each child also made a book out of this song.  They illustrated one page a day until it was done – that gave them lots of time to learn the song, and since they knew how to sing it – they could read it too!

Here is a copy of the song, printed one line on each half page.

Friends

I also liked to talk about the difference between Valentine hearts, and the heart in our body.

Roxie Heart got a new heart dress and came to visit (if you haven’t met Roxie, please check out my posts on informational text.)

She just had to have hair bows to match!

Roxie carries a little purse that matches her dress, and always carries something that reminds the children of one of the facts she talks about.  She carried a small piece of a drinking straw in her heart purse.

We talked in very simple terms about the circulatory system – and used a straw as a visual representation of veins and arteries.

I made cards with simple pictures that Roxie showed to help the children understand and remember the facts she talked about.

Here are printable copies of the facts cards:

heart facts

After discussing the facts, I asked the children to draw and write some of the facts that they remembered.

Heart fact book cover

I brought in a stethoscope too, and let the children listen to their hearts.  We noticed the difference in our heart beats after some simple exercise.

I also used a copy change book to reinforce rhyming.  Earlier in the school year we made a book that included the text:  Pumpkins by the house, pumpkins by the mouse, etc.  We made similar books about leaves and snow – during Valentine’s Day we made a Heart Rhyme book.

 

Sorry the picture doesn’t show well – the children traced and cut out 2 socks, then glued them onto the page and stamped them with hearts.

The picture on this page was supposed to be a rug – they fringed the short ends and decorated it.  Sometimes we made an oval rug instead.

The door was taped on the left side so it would open.  The children drew a picture of a friend behind the door.

This was the only page that was not cut and paste – they just traced several different hearts on the page.

If you don’t have a little heart stamp to use on each page – or would like a few more, just get some adhesive foam – in the Dr. Scholl’s section at Target or Walmart, and cut it with scissors into small heart shapes.  Then peel off the backing and stick it to a small block – they work great and hold up well too!

Here are the words to the Heart Book – I usually put them in a pocket chart.

Heart words

I loved talking about the whole subject of friendship and emphasis on caring about other people, and tried to include lots of this discussion all year!

100th Day Fun!

For the past few years Valentines Day and the 100th day of school happened to fall on the same day – or very close – so we decided to combine these into one big celebration.  I know that some of the things I am sharing won’t work for this year because it is past Valentines Day – but maybe you could adapt or save some ideas for another year.  We had a parent/child activity day and invited each child to bring an adult to school for half of the day.  We did this a couple of times a year, it was a great way to educate parents about how children learn and things they could do with their child at home.

Every year, whether we had a parent/child day or not, I asked each child to count out 100 of one item and bring it in to school.  We compared these things by size and noticed how different 100 things look – how some take up much more space than others.  We also placed the baggies of 100 things on a balance scale to see the heaviest and lightest objects – lots of great comparative language.  Here is the letter I sent home:

Bring 100

As part of our calendar routine every day we counted the days of school and celebrated Zero the Hero day every 10th day.  I had an old Grover stuffed animal from my own children’s past – and I made a little cape for him with a big 0 on it – like a superman cape.  He came out (he lived in my puppet castle) every Zero the Hero day, along with a pop up creature puppet that I called Mr. Number.  On these 10th day celebrations I brought both of these puppets out, the kids counted to the number we had reached for the days of school, jumping on every number that had a zero in it – then we jumped again – counting by 10s to 100 and jumping every time.  After that the children lined up and came around the circle past me, and I stamped a Zero the Hero stamp on their hand – unless they said “No, thank you.”

So of course, these puppets had to be part of the 100th day celebration – we began the day with them, counting and jumping.  But sometime during the 100th day – usually near the end of the afternoon – I conned someone into dressing up like the “real” Zero the Hero and making a short appearance.  I made a black and red cape and decorated it with colored Zeroes, along with a top hat and glasses with 100 on them.  Some of my “volunteers” got creative and added a lot more – like a wig, face paint, etc. but it worked okay even if they just wore the cape and hat.  I tried to find someone the children didn’t already know so they wouldn’t recognize their voice, etc.  I provided a basic script but encouraged Zero the Hero to be flexible and add anything (s)he liked.  Some added props like a Jello box adapted to say Zello – or Cheerios that were renamed Zeerios, etc. to tell about the planet Zero – where Zero the Hero comes from.  I usually provided something simple for them to pass out – individually wrapped Lifesavers, or even paper 0’s.

Here was the basic script, to give the Zero the Hero volunteer and idea about what to say –

Zero the Hero script

The children loved this so much, and we had such a great day that it was a wonderful opportunity to make a language experience book about the whole day.  As a class we wrote what the children remembered and enjoyed, then I typed it – breaking it into one or two sentences on each page, and the children illustrated it.  Here is a sample:

100th day book

Here is the invitation for the Parent/child Heart Day:

INVITATION

And the check off list of activities –  all 4 or 5 Kindergarten classes participated, sometimes we spread the activities out among the classrooms – sometimes we used the cafeteria.

Parent child checkoff

This is a basic short description of some of the centers:

description of centers

At the beginning of the day I did some of our regular circle time routines so parents could see what our morning circle time was like, and then I always tried to do some kind of active participation thing to get parents involved.  For this parent/child day I shared a Hug Book – we used these hugs every day during our routines – but the children practiced them with their parents on our Heart Day. I already posted this but here is another copy:

Hug book

One of the activities we did that day was to cut out smaller versions of these pictures and glue them onto a belt made out of a sentence strip – to remind parents of these hugs in case they wanted to use them at home.

After circle time the parents and children were free to go to the activities in any order they chose.  I made 3 sided signs with simple directions for each project that I set on each table.  Here are many of the directions:

Directions

more directions

Heavy hearts

Balance Beam Activities

Here are a couple of pictures of the children measuring how many kids would equal the strip of 100 circles.

I hope you can find something you can use!  Happy 100th day!!

Presidents’ Day!

I’m sorry that I haven’t written a blog in a couple of weeks – I was on vacation at Disneyworld!  Of course it was so much fun!  But I completely missed Valentine’s Day – and I am late sharing anything for Presidents’ Day – but maybe someone can find something to use another year.  I will also post some Valentine’s Day stuff soon – for your files!

In my district we usually had either an inservice day or a day or two of winter break in February, so it was easy to fit in a few days to talk about President Washington, President Lincoln and our current President.  We didn’t do an indepth study at all, but I wanted to give the children a little information about each President.  We celebrated a different president each day – usually starting with Washington.

The best strategy for me was to tell the children a story about each President – including some of the myths that they might hear.  I know there are a lot of conflicting opinions about telling children that Washington chopped down a cherry tree, or wore wooden teeth.  In the story I make up to tell the children I explain that the whole point is that George Washington was remembered as a very honest man, and the story about the cherry tree might never have happened, but it helps us remember that he told the truth.  I also tell them a little about how dentists didn’t have tools to use like we have today – and that Washington had teeth that were not comfortable in his mouth – although they probably weren’t really made out of wood.  After I tell my story, we read a book about Washington, then made a book to remind us of some of the things we discussed.

Again, I am sorry that I don’t have original masters of these books – but I am happy to share the finished books.

I usually bought those little flags on cocktail toothpicks – sometimes at a Dollar Store, but the copy I saved of the book has a handmade flag.

We put the cherry tree on a brad fastener so it could fall down – again, I emphasized that this was probably just a made up story about George.

For years I had a supply of little wooden tiles meant for a doll house roof that I used for the wooden teeth.  When I ran out of those I broke tongue depressors into pieces and the children glued those on.

We also did rubbings of quarters – and played math games with money.

My whole point was to build schema about presidents – give them a little background knowledge and understanding of the common myths they might hear about this time of year.

Another day we heard a story, read books, and made a book about Lincoln too.

The picture cues helped the children remember what to put on each page.

Sometimes we used a scrapbooking tool that made the paper look corrugated – bumpy.  Sometimes we glued on popsicle sticks – other times we just drew lines to look like a log cabin.  We got out the Lincoln Logs to play with too!

I premade little books with 4-6 pages inside.  The children had to draw and write on each page of the book before they glued it into the Lincoln book.

 

 

I taught the children a simple poem about Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Kind and good

Was honored and loved by many.

To help us remember this President

We put his face on our penny.

 

This was a great time to reinforce coins.  We did lots of sorting, rubbings, etc.

One of my calendar routines was adding a penny for each day of school – we said our penny poem every day, then traded for nickels, dimes and quarters – whenever we added a coin we said the poem.

Money poems

I didn’t save our booklet that told about our current President – and of course I had to change this every time we elected a new President.  It was a simple folded piece of xerox paper, with a clipart picture of the White House on the front.  It was easy to find simple facts and photographs of the First Family online.  The children would bubble cut out small pictures of them and glue them inside the folded paper.  Then they would label the President, his wife’s first name, and the names of the children.  We also included their pets.  I tried to tell them interesting facts about each person and they would draw a simple symbol to represent these facts – for example – “Michelle Obama wants children to eat healthy food.” They would draw healthy food near the glued on picture of Mrs. Obama.  My purpose was to spend some time talking about our President and give them just a little information.

Sometimes we also read books and talked about the American Flag – and made a simple one that we mounted on a straw or a pencil.

We often brainstormed and wrote about what we would do if we were the President of the United States.

Sometimes the children free cut trees, and we tied yellow ribbon around them – and wrote about why we are happy to be Americans.  I liked to do this if any of my Kindergarten parents were actively in military service.

Penguins!

I used to read a lot of fun penguin books during our Winter Unit.  Of course, Roxie Heart had to have her own penguin outfit to go along with one of the information books we read.

The facts that she taught the class were:

Penguins are birds but they can’t fly.

A Penguin can slide on his tummy faster than a man can run.

Penguin use their spikey tongue to catch fish to eat.

The mother and father penguin both take care of their baby.

They hold the egg, and later the baby penguin, on their feet to keep them off the ice – and cover them with a fold of their skin.

Penguins live in large groups called colonies.

I just go through the book I want to use and pick out about 5-6 facts I would like the children to remember, and draw simple illustrations.

Roxie Heart has a spikey tongue made out of construction paper in her purse.

We reinforced these facts by making a Penguin Book too!

This penguin popped up when you open the page.  It was fun teaching the children how to cut 2 slits on the folded edge of the paper and push that portion in to make the pop-up.  After that I saw kids using this technique at the art center too!  The cutout diamond pieces are supposed to make it look like a snowy hill.

I had access to some lightweight foam that we glued onto the page to look like ice or snow.  Then we glued a tagboard strip onto the end of the penguin.  When we put the end of the strip into a slit on the page we could make the penguin “slide” across the page.

Of course we had to eat some Goldfish Crackers too.  I loved playing a math story problem game with this.  At circle time I gave each child a cup with about 12 Goldfish crackers and a piece of blue paper – no smaller than 4 x 4 1/2.  Then I told them a story –

“One day there were 2 fish swimming in the lake.”

We all put 2 fish on the paper.

“Soon 3 more fish came along.”

We added 3 fish.

“How many fish were in the lake now?”

The children counted and said “5.”

“Then a big whale came along and ate 1 fish.”

We ate one off the paper.

“Now how many fish were left?”

“Two fish heard their mother call them to come home”

We ate 2 more, and I asked how many remained.  I usually just made up the story as we went along, including simple adding and subtracting.  I played this game several times during the school year, and depending on where we were in math – sometimes I asked the children to tell me the “number sentence” that went along with it.

At Halloween I used white crayon to draw one square on top of another and then a triangle on top – for a simple haunted house and we played this game with Count Chocula (sp?) cereal.  Sometimes we used Honeycomb cereal for snowflakes or Teddy Grahams.  You can play it over and over and the kids always love it.  You might want to ask the children to help tell the story.   I stopped occasionally and asked the children to see if the person next to them had the same amount of fish (or whatever) as they did – to double check that they were all keeping up with the story.

The little piece of fur was only glued on at the top, and lifted up to show the baby penguin sitting on the Daddy’s feet.

This year I happened to have some penguin stickers, other times we just drew the baby.

Obviously the text for this book was not a pattern, and the sentences were a little longer than some of the books we made.  It also did not rely on sight words.  The purpose of this book was to reinforce what we learned about penguins, but I still put the words into a pocket chart and read and reread them.  I think this is a good example of differentiation – some children were usually ready to read this text by relying on sight words, word chunks and picture cues.  Other children memorized it because of the repeated re-reading.  There were some children that just talked about what was going on as they “read” each page.   No matter how they read it – they enjoyed it and really remembered facts about penguins!

We Like Winter!

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of time to love the people close to you.  I hope you are able to have some time to relax and do something fun before you go back to school!

I know it can be a little hard for the kids to transition back to school after the holiday break.  I used to invite the children to bring in one thing that they received as a gift, or to show something they did, on that first day back.  They are usually all anxious to talk and share!

We also began our study of winter – which is pretty easy in Michigan!  I put the words to this book in a pocket chart and we read it every day, noticing concepts about print, sight words, and there was an illustration at the end of each sentence strip that matched the words.  We completed one page of this book each day, and read lots of books and did other activities that went along with each page.

I used to make this a full sized book, but then I reduced it to 9 x 6 and that seemed like a better size.  I typed out the words using 2 spaces between the words, and xeroxed a class set.  Then I cut the words apart and gave each child a sentence to glue on each day.  Here are the words for the book.

Winter book words

On the cover of the book I loved doing an art technique – using long Q-tips and household bleach.  Of course I talked very seriously about how bleach is a chemical and must be handled very carefully.  I also had a parent supervise 2 children at a time doing this.  They just dipped the Q-tip into a very small amount of bleach and then drew snowmen, snowflakes, trees, etc. on the cover.  The bleach takes the color out of the page.  I found that this worked better with dark blue paper than black.  Other years we just used a white crayon and drew winter things.

Along with the words, I gave each child 2 pieces of white construction paper – to free cut a snow hill and snowman.  Then they used scraps to add details to the page.  I asked them to use a white crayon to add snowflakes.

Along with this snow page we did a science experiment – I sent a few children outside to fill 3-4 containers with snow.  Then we guessed where in our classroom the snow would melt the fastest.  We numbered the containers, and put them in the places the children chose.  Then the children each predicted which container they thought would melt first.  We watched throughout the day to see which actually did melt first.

Sometimes we also filled a container with snow and made a line with a marker to show how full it was.  Then we watched as the snow melted and saw how the water took up less space in the cup.

We read Ezra Jack Keats – The Snowy Day.  Throughout this week I reread this book often, along with many other winter books.  After a few readings we acted it out – pretending to do all the things that Peter did.  We spent time talking about “events” in a story – we made a list and counted the events in this story – I think it was about 21!  After multiple readings I asked the children to draw about 5 – 6 events, and we made a construction paper Peter – with a pointed hat of course.  They used the little Peter as a pointer as they retold the story.  I learned that when I took time to read and reread a favorite book, the children often started using the interesting text and fun intonations when they read it to themselves or retold the story.  I loved hearing them say “PLOP!” when the snow fell on Peter’s head – and using so much of the great language from the story.

Of course we had to cut out paper snowflakes too!  I often started with folded up coffee filters.

For the mitten page I xeroxed one mitten with a simple pattern on it.  Then I folded the paper so the children would cut out 2 mittens.  They had to decorate the blank mitten to match the one with the patterns.  We used markers to make it more fun!

Did I ever show you how I stored markers?  I found that using a plastic ice cube maker – meant to make long skinny ice cubes for water bottles, was a great way to store markers.  The children were much better about replacing the lids and putting the markers away than when I had them in a basket.  These containers also hold 3 of each color – so it usually works great for a table of 5-6 kids.

We talked about winter clothing along with the mitten page, and read The Jacket I Wear in the Snow, and Froggy Gets Dressed.  Each child also colored a simple small mitten shape and we graphed whether we wore mittens, gloves, or bare hands to school that day.  I made the graph headings by actually putting a mitten, then a glove, and then my bare hand – into the xerox machine and made a picture.  Then I asked the chidlren what they noticed about the graph and posted their comments by the graph:   ‘Ashley said “There are more gloves than bare hands.”   ‘Drake said “There are 3 more gloves than mittens.”, etc.

We usually actually made cocoa on the day we did this page.  I loved calling it “Snowman Soup.”  Each child opened a packet of hot chocolate and a parent added warm water (not too hot!)  Then they added 2 chocolate kisses, 4 mini marshmallows and stirred it all with a small candy cane.

We sprinkled dry cocoa powder onto a little glue on the paper cup on the page and drew a picture of what we like to eat with hot chocolate.  This could be another opportunity for a graph.

We painted the background of this page the previous day – or earlier in the day so it could dry before we added the sled.  We used a piece of small bubble wrap, set it in a styrofoam tray of white paint, then set it on the page and gently patted it.  After the bubbles dried we added popsicle sticks for the sled – I broke some ahead of time for the one that crossed the top.

I loved bringing in a real sled and sometimes we used it in the hallway, on the carpet – with one child pushing or pulling another.  We also took the sled outside and did more push – pull activities.  I will share a little more about that later.

I loved to show the children one of the illustrations in the book The Snowy Day – where Peter’s back was turned and you could see his footprints leading up to where he was standing.  Some years we tried to duplicate that idea on this page.  Sometimes I gave them a footprint stamp – but it was almost impossible for them to stamp a line that looked like someone walking through the snow – they just wanted to stamp!  Of course we had to go outside and make our own footprints if we had enough snow.  This leads to an opportunity to measure with footsteps – how many footsteps to the sink, to the calendar, to the door, etc.

We also made a list of important parts of a snowman – 3 balls – small, medium and large; a hat, a nose, a mouth, arms, a scarf, etc.  This list became a rubric of what the children had to include when they each free cut a snowman.  Then they used different materials to measure their snowman – I used unifix cubes and plastic links.  I put the snowmen and recording sheets for the measurements up on the wall along with some of their writing.  Sometimes we brainstormed and wrote about what we like to do in the snow.

in the snow

Hope your 2011 starts off great!