Winter

I've finally gotten back into the swing of things with my little ones and school. I decided to go with a winter theme since well, it is winter! During the two weeks of winter theme, we also had co-op here. The boys love the time with their friends.

I have found that pinterest in a wealth of knowledge for ideas. I found printable resources here and here. We did three different science experiments. I have been working on using the scientific method with the kids. We currently only talk about the purpose, hypothesis and conclusion. I have the kids draw a picture about the experiment. During this unit, the boys melted colored ice to discover what colors were made. They observed snow and recorded their observations. And they also added sugar and salt to snow to see if that affected the speed in which it melts. They really enjoyed the discoveries they made. Ollie had a hard time realizing that the melting experiment was not a contest. He thought he lost because he was the one who added the sugar and Dawson added the salt. Of course, the salt melted the fastest. Oh, the unfairness of it all!

We did a few different art projects. I worked with the boys to cut snowflakes. On their sheets I wrote the word snowflake on Ollies and S on Dawsons. We talked about the letters and sounds. then they glued them down and used watercolor paints on them. I am huge fan of watercolors. We use them all the time. We also painted with snow paint (just mix shaving cream with some elmer's glue and add glitter). When it dries, it keeps it's shape and makes a nice 3 dimensional piece. I had seen a few people on pinterest sending their kids out in the snow with squirt bottles of colored water to paint the snow. unfortunately, I did not have big squirt bottles so I improvised. I kept my kids inside, handed them a pie plate of snow and some food coloring. Viola! Snow art. They thought this was fabulous.

We made two different snowman snacks. Pictured here:

I found this great game. I wish I could find the source but I cannot. When I searched pinterest, I found about a hundred so I'm sure you can find it too. It's called Roll & Build snowman. The kids rolled the dice to see what part to add to their snowman. It took me a while to realize that the dice had only 1-3 on it! oops. We were able to finish building once I found a proper dice!

For math, we used marshmallows twice. Once, I told them it was snow. Ollie worked on his addition and subtraction while Dawson counted. The second time, I drew little mugs and they places the marshmallows in them. We also made patterns with snowflakes. Ollie cut a snowflake in half, then 4ths and 8ths. We talked about fractions and he identified different ones like 3/8, 1/4, 1/2.

I cut different sized snowflakes and had Dawson order them smallest to biggest. I also cut some in different colors and talked to Dawson about the colors.

We used socks and had a snowball fight. I made snow playdoh (just homemade playdoh. Don't add food coloring. Do add glitter.) I will say that if you make snowdoh, buy bleached flour. I use unbleached so my snowdoh was more of an off white. We read books and wrote stories. We played outside. We watched a few videos about snow and how it forms.



 Our unit was full, full, full!  The kids had a blast and much was learned.