One of my 2016 goals is to share more preschool tidbits on my blog. The last couple weeks we have been talking about winter, snow and all things cold at preschool. So here are a few super fun things we did during our winter unit...
Make a winter scene...Each child had to cut out 3 triangle trees, tear the white paper for snow and glue to the blue background paper. Then they used a white crayon to add some "snow" to the sky and trees. Finally they placed some fun wintery stickers on to finish the scene.
We are always working on counting and number recognition, so this number snowman fit in great this week. The child is told a number and they must find it on the snowman and cover with a snowflake. The number line at the top is for those who needed a little help identifying the numbers.
Who doesn't love to make a snowman?! We had 2 versions...the first was a manipulative. The children were encouraged to take turns building a snowman using the provided pieces...cotton rounds, buttons, small twigs, foam hats, and ribbon pieces. It was interesting to see color choices and number of scarves or buttons each snowmen had!
The next snowman was paper snowman. Each child had to cut out 2 circles and attach them. Next they glued on the arms, scarf and hat. Then they were told to draw eyes, carrot nose, mouth on the head and buttons on the body. These turned out especially cute. I loved seeing the different mouth expressions some made..this one is a cute, simple smile while there were others with open, surprised mouths and even mad, grumbled ones!
Learning to identify colors and sort them is another skill we worked on. Here I had cut mittens out of several colors of construction paper. Then I grabbed a variety of colorful objects for the children to sort. We incorporate this activity at circle time also. The children identify a color on their clothing and then find something in the classroom that matches.
Another activity that is fun to do in our winter unit is hot chocolate tasting! Most of the kids love the hot chocolates. Only a few opt for water instead! ;) Everyone knows that hot chocolate is better with marshmallows, so we do several fun activities with those too!
marshmallow painting...use a large marshmallow, dip it into white paint and stamp it on paper.
marshmallow sensory bin....place a mix of mini colored fruit flavored marshmallows and white ones in a bin with foam cups, spoons and scoops.
marshmallow art....have children practicing using small dots of glue and stick on mini marshmallows
marshmallow drop...using tongs the children pick up a marshmallow or white pom pom and drop into a mug
Here are some
other winter themed ideas I posted last year.
