Our first week home after being on vacation has been a success. We took it easy and focused on reading a lot of great Christmas and winter books, and just having a fun and relaxing week. We started our first week of Mother Goose Time Winter Wonderland theme for December. We are a little behind now for the month, but there was so much fun stuff to do that we are just going to end up finishing this theme around the second week of January. Luckily this curriculum is flexible and does well with schedule changes. We can go at our pace and change things easily whenever we need to.
This first week was all about Ice and Snow, and while it is pretty cold here we aren't cold enough to be icy, not to mention we strangely have been lacking in the rain department here in Seattle! We still enjoyed talking about and learning about snow though. We had indoor snow days all week long.
On snowflake day we hung up the name tags we had made the previous week before our trip, and we played with the snowflake builder manipulatives that came in this months supplies. We also made these really cool snowflakes out of craft sticks that we hung in our window. They were so cute!
On Icicle day we played with ice cubes and watched them drip, then we searched for fun items on our monthly topic poster. We also played a fun math game called sizing icicles. I pre cut clear straws to small, medium, and large sizes and had him sort the pile of straws. Then he used these sparkly silver pipe cleaners to imagine how ice might melt and drip to the ground by sliding the pipe cleaners through the straws. After we were finished with this activity we actually kept the straw icicles and hung them on our Christmas tree. They are really pretty and a lot cleaner then tinsel!
This first week was all about Ice and Snow, and while it is pretty cold here we aren't cold enough to be icy, not to mention we strangely have been lacking in the rain department here in Seattle! We still enjoyed talking about and learning about snow though. We had indoor snow days all week long.
On snowflake day we hung up the name tags we had made the previous week before our trip, and we played with the snowflake builder manipulatives that came in this months supplies. We also made these really cool snowflakes out of craft sticks that we hung in our window. They were so cute!
On Snowman day we made snowball cookies and we used play dough and counted how many play dough snow balls we could roll in one minute. This was so fun, and great for practicing measurement, spatial awareness and fine motor skills. There were a lot of laughs while we rolled as fast as we could. Then we worked more on fine motor skills and emergent writing by doing the cutest snowman craft. My little guy was so proud of this snowman and I think this is the hardest I have seen him work on something. It was fun to watch him carefully make the face on his snowman, and writing his name out on the body pieces was challenging especially when it came time for him to put them all in the right order, but he did it all with little help. I have a feeling this one will be staying up on display for awhile.
On igloo day we used the included counting cubes as blocks to build our own igloos, and we used our Legos to try another way to build an igloo, then we did a fun make and play activity that let the kids make their own igloos out of paper plates complete with fun animals to play with. Creating this was a lot of fun and was a great source of imaginative play.
Our last day this week was Freezing and Melting Day. I didn't get pictures of this day, but we drew the covers for our monthly journal, experimented with ice in bins of warm water and cold water, and went back to one of favorite activities from a month or two ago. We froze an animal toy and then used salt, warm water, pipette, and little hammers to get them out. I forget which month we did this in, but we have gone back and done this activity several times. My kids really like rescuing their toys from blocks of ice. I was thinking I might have to try this activity on a larger scale and freeze something in a big tub or bucket.
We had a fun week yet still we were able to do math, science, language arts, and social skills all while learning about ice and snow. We can't wait for next week when we get to learn about the Alpine Tundra. There is a painting with pinecones activity that I can not wait to try, not to mention we were just gifted some beautiful natural paint brushes made from different evergreen trees and I think they would go perfectly with this week as well.
*Mother Goose Time has generously provided this curriculum to us in exchange for our stories and honest opinions*
*Mother Goose Time has generously provided this curriculum to us in exchange for our stories and honest opinions*
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