Winter Week!

Well... the weather kind of foiled my plan for this week. Seeing as how it was in the 50's and 60's the whole time, we didn't get to do any of the outside stuff that I'd planned! Plus I was a little late on ordering the books from the library and many of them didn't come in in time. Thank goodness for YouTube and teachers that make videos reading aloud from books!

Day 1: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Snowmen at Night. We didn't have The Snowy Day yet, so we listened to it on YouTube. That may have actually worked out as good, if not better, than reading it myself. Another way of doing the same thing is sometimes more interesting :-)



Snowmen for breakfast!

Growing icicles. This is AWESOME! Only use containers that you want to throw away afterwards though, I lost 2 mason jars to this project...

 

Aren't these beautiful!?

 

 

Making snowmen with homemade playdough. Last time I made this, the kids said it smelled funky, so this time I added some lavender. Now we have very sweet smelling snowmen

Lily's creations

Something happened and they all got squished

Round 2- When Wade came home they played again. This is his snowman.


Day 2- The Mitten

Frozen cereal? Why not- it does have snow and ice crystal marshmallows, so it ties right in to our theme...

Counting out marshmallows onto numbered cards

Then adding them to hot chocolate

And enjoying a little mitten toast

Mitten matching game

Pinning her matches together with a clothes pin

It's harder than it looks for little fingers!

She had to rearrange them all so that both mittens were facing the same way. Wonder where she gets that from...

Again with the contact paper and tissue paper. She's still not a fan

The kids loved how the icicles turned out so much, that we had to make more

Glue and salt icicles

Not super thrilled with how it turned out

Day 3- The Snowman- we didn't do much this day, because we had to head over to Jumpers for some  gymnastics!

Snowman donuts!

We painted with cornstarch and food coloring. And glitter, of course. If you've never done this, you should because it's so cool!

Stirring it all up

It's just so pretty

Waiting for it to drip onto her paper

I had put down electrical tape (on cardstock), and should have used something else. This ripped the paper underneath and made it a little rough looking as you can (maybe) see from the next picture.

Lily's creation. I just love how shiny this stuff turns out!

Then we made bead icicles

And added them to the tree

Our snowy tree is finally complete!

Snowstorm in a bottle. Again, this is something that I just made & gave to the kids. Turned out much better than last week's jellyfish in a bottle...

Very mesmerizing...

 Day 4- Polar Bear Morning- also a sparse day because we went to the library for story time

Feeding the snowman fish (and dolphins and whales and turtles and seals)

And having a little chat with him...

Using snow paint (shaving cream and glue) to make polar bears

Taking this very seriously

Lily's polar bear

Wade's polar bear

Day 5- Frozen! I actually went to Walmart this morning and picked up a paperback Frozen story, since the one I had requested hadn't come into the library yet. It's pretty cool and focuses on opposites. We had been working up to this day all week long. Lily told every one we saw that we were planning to watch the movie later. Apparently she has added herself, albeit a little late, to the cult of Frozen followers...

Trapped in a snowglobe! I thought these were cute and that Lily would find them funny. She was in a mood today and not at all amused.

After I tortured her by asking her to help my tear apart some cotton balls, the torture continues as she sprinkles some glitter on it...

I think these are awesome

Maybe a little amusing after all...

Now we're in a better mood and helping to make snowman dough

Her creations

Squirting on the snowman juice & watching the reaction take place

Adding sound effects

And this is what they turn into- a pile of foam!

We had to do this again and again, until we ran out of "snowman dough." Really fun!!

At last!



"Melted snowmen" dessert for during the movie. FYI- don't make pudding with almond milk and cover it with saran wrap. It stays in liquid form (notice the straw coming out of Lily's in the following picture). But apparently the kids don't care- they really liked their "melted snowmen" treat. 

Hey Lily, show me your treat. Can't Mom, Frozen's on.

Another super fun week. I really enjoy putting these themes together and it gives Lily and I some structure. I like how I'm learning what she's struggling with (shapes, really?!) and what she's good at- fine motor skills- bead threading, etc. I think she enjoys the animal themes better, so I'm going to alternate. Next up- Farm Week!