While all this cold was happening, it was a perfect time to do a winter unit. I love doing my winter unit right before winter break. This is the time when I read The Mitten, The Snowy Day, and The Gingerbread Baby. Since my school doesn't allow any type of holiday related activity this allows me to do a winter celebration at the end of the month. I always do Gingerbread Baby the week before break, so we can do something fun that last day (make cookies!).
I wanted to share with you all some of the fun that we did in the classroom. There's a few things that I made and some fun center stuff! I love changing the dramatic play to fit the theme. Well any center for that matter. For winter I do a winter cabin. We include a little ice fishing, some tea or hot cocca, a fire place, lacing cards, you name it! Every year it's been a fun one to think of how to expand it to make it better!
The fire place with a box of lacing cards or board books to read. There is usually a box with some fake flames in it, but I had to do some repairing. To make the fire place, I used a left over box from a cart and then covered it with brown paper. Painted on some lines to make it look like brick. For the flames I used tissue paper and then toilet paper rolls for the logs.
Our ice fishing pond. The fishing poles are stored over in the cabin part of the dramatic play. The fish and fishing poles are both from lakeshore. To make this I took a small box and lined the inside and outside with blue paper. Then I added bubble wrap for an "icy" look.
This is how I had the how part of the cabin laid out. I had an empty tea box and hot chocolate boxes for them to use. I added cotton balls to use as pretend marshmallows. I also stored the fishing poles and gloves to pretend to go Ice Fishing. In the past, I would put hats, scarfs, and extra coats. Unfortunately, my room has had non stop lice all year, so that was out of the question. You can also see on one section that I have gingerbread cut outs and rolling pins for them to make gingerbread cookies.
This is a picture from a previous year to show the students making their own gingerbread cookies. For the play dough I added gingerbread spices to make it look and smell like gingerbread.
This is my magnet board in my literacy center and I used some mitten vocabulary cards that I made and put them in the center to encourage students to write the words from the story.
I am very fortunate to have these wonderful snowy day props. I put them on the felt board after using them to retell with the students. They loved being able to come over here and retell a story.
This is my sensory table in the winter. My great AE went outside everyday and brought in a bucket full of snow for the children to play in. This was great, because for the whole month of December it was too cold for them to play outside. I had this great alphabet sand molds from lakeshore that I put in there along with some water proof gloves.
This is a picture from a couple years ago where I made some peppermint white glittery play dough (snow) for students to use in the play dough center. I put out the book, The Snowy Day, to encourage them to make some of the same things Peter did in the snow.
I made a few snow man counting mats for the students to use for a small group center and later on in the math center. I let them use some colorful buttons that I had purchased at Jo Ann Fabrics. I had them draw a card and then put that many buttons on the snowman. I had 3 types of cards. Cards with just the dots, cards with the numeral and dots (shown above), and then cards with just the numeral. This helped me to meet all of the children's needs.
This is my last picture that I have from my winter theme. I found this idea on pinterest. This was on a Time 4 Kindergarten blog spot and I thought it was a great idea On her blog she uses shaving cream and glue. I just used white paint, because I didn't have time to run to the store to get the shaving cream. The students loved being able to paint a scene from the story and then add Peter to it. With the paint, Peter stuck right on there so there was no need to glue on Peter.
I hope you like some of my ideas that I shared with you. I would love some feedback on what people think!
