Snow Science

With all the snow falling outside we thought making our own snow would be fun!

We mixed baby oil and flour together to make pretend snow! The pretend snow was very soft and warm on our hands. We then had the idea to bring the real snow right into our classroom!

As we played with the real snow we talked about how it felt. We decided that it was still soft but hard at the same time. It was really cold against our hands and...

The longer it was inside our warm classroom... it started to melt ! It was different then our pretend snow because our pretend snow held up no matter how warm  our classroom. The snow didn't melt completely right away...

First it just became a little watery. Then as time passed it turned into ice!

Eventually it all turned to water and we had a very big mess to clean up! But it was a lot of fun building mini snowmen, snowballs, castles, and other things with our pretend snow and our real snow!

All the Children Are Fast Asleep...

"All the children are fast asleep, quietly dreaming without a peep. But when they open up their eyes, my, oh, my, what a big surprise! They act like... "

"Ducks!"

We had lots of fun doing another creative movement activity with animals. Later we made it into just an animal and sound recognition game where we could only make the sounds but not move. We were statues... which was pretty tricky because moving and dancing is much more fun!

Melting Snowmen

Sometimes its very warm in our classroom! So we made melting snowmen with felt and cotton balls. We glues cotton balls to our felt and added pipe cleaners for arms. Then we added a carrot orange foam nose and puffy paint eyes and mouths. Lastly we added a felt scarve just in case it got cold!

Potato Penguin Predictions!

When we first brought out the potatoes we didn't think we were going to paint with them!

But just like our nature paintings, we thought outside the box to decide what materials to use to make our own penguin prints!

We painted a larger potato black and a smaller potato white. After we pressed the black one on to the paper, we pressed down the white one. We ended up with many playful penguins !

Later we lied out a sheet and pretended it was an "iceberg," and we pretended to be "penguins!" We had to decided if our whole class of penguins would fit on the iceberg and if so how many. Then we folded the sheet in half several times, each deciding if we could still fit.

We learned to make hypotheses and learned about fractions. It was really fun to try and squeeze onto the iceberg and not fall into the water!

Icey Icicles

Remembering our discussion about snowflakes and how each one is unique in its own way, we tried to think of other things that share that quality. Icicles! Icicles form in the winter and no two are exactly alike! We drew a line of glue at the top of our paper and held it upright. The glue dripped down our paper forming icicles. We then added salt to make them glisten like the ice outside!

Candy Cane Senses!

We made candy canes with construction paper and "peppermint paint!" We mixed peppermint extract and white paint to make it smell just like a real candy cane!

Then we pulled out the candy canes we could eat!

We first discussed our five senses and what body parts were associated with them. Then using each one we made observations about a regular peppermint candy cane and a mystery one.

We eventually decided the mystery candy cane was Strawberry! In the end we got to learn about the senses we use every day and utilized them to solve a problem, and got to have a sweet afternoon snack!

Rainbow Fish

Fingerpainting is always buckets of fun!

When we get to fingerpaint something almost as big as us... that makes it super exciting! We read the story Rainbow Fish and talked about sharing and being respectful and caring to our friends. Then we fingerpainted our EXTRA LARGE fish with many different colors! Each fish had their very own "glitter scale" because as we learned in the story- Sharing is Caring!

Its very fun to come into our classroom and see our fishy friends swimming above us! Its almost like we're under the sea!