Snowflake Impressions

Cynthia(Nanny):
After Christmas sales are always a good way to find supplies for winter projects or even Christmas projects for next year.
I found these snowflake window clings for .50 in the Christmas clearance section of my grocery store.
I modeled how to rub a crayon lightly over the raised part of the snowflake onto paper. They remembered doing this in the fall with leaves.
This time, they had better results because they were able to color in one direction instead of scribbling.

Snowflake Number Game

Cynthia(Nanny):
I made number cards using a snowflake graphic.
I placed the cards (numbers 1-12) in a paper bag and played a game with the girls.
This was an easy way to practice number recognition in an engaging way.
This is also a good game they can play independently during center time or during meal prep/cleanup times.

Snowman Size Ordering

Cynthia (Nanny):
I printed out three sizes of the same snowman for the girls to order by size.
We talked about size words and synonyms for those words like small and little and big and large.

Snowman Tear Art

Cynthia(Nanny):
I love tear art projects. They have a cool visual effect and it's a great small motor activity for little hands.
I started by drawing a white outline and then modeled how to tear the paper and glue onto the snowman.
They needed some help with tearing, but did a good job trying.
After we were done, they were excited to add details to make it better.

Adding details to projects now will hopefully lead to adding details to their writing as they get older. Adding details to make writing pieces more interesting is a tough skill to learn, so the more early exposure; the better!

Snowball Scooping

Cynthia(Nanny):
Since we don't have cold, snowy winters we have to improvise when we teach winter themes. I made a cotton ball sensory bin for the girls to play with. Then we tried scooping them onto their heads while being blindfolded.

Building a Snowman

Cynthia(Nanny):
Once again, improvising with our lack of snow in Texas, I cut shapes out of foam pieces and had the girls build a Snowman.
They even told me they were missing a scarf and broom, so we were able to add those pieces to their picture.
To add a language development component I had them practice telling me about their snowman in complete sentences.

Arielle (mommy):  We built snowmen too! O is 2 now and Lil is 4 so I altered the activit a bit for each of them.

For Lil I cut out a hat, mittens, scarf, and a carrot nose.  I gave her markers, a white sheet of paper, yarn and glue.  I had her draw her own snowman and put then decorate it with the cutouts.  Then I let her use the small yarn peices to decorate the winter accessories.

For O I cut everything out for him, put the glue on the paper, and had him place the cutouts where he wanted them.  Then he used a black marker to draw the face.

Winter Science

Arielle (mommy):  Before deciding what exactly to teach Lil and O about winter, I asked Lik questions to figure out how much she already knows.  She was able to describe the weather in winter, the activities people might do outside, and the clothing we should wear.  As we talked about winter, I worked with O in practicing to say winter words.

Lil told be that in the winter it is so cold it snows instead of rains.  This seemed to lead to a science experiment about freezing water.  I asked her what would happen to a cup of water if we put it in the freezer, she quickly said it would freeze.  So I decided to make it a bit more complex by having her freeze hot water and cold water and observe the changes.

We created a visual to show her predictions.  She thought the cold water would freeze first and the hot water would freeze later.

While we waited for the water to freeze we watched the brainpop jr video clip about winter (this clip is free right now).

O and I read a winter cloth book to get him involved too.