Polar Bear, Polar Bear…and other winter fun!

Well we are in the throws of winter now.  So far we haven’t gotten too much snow, but this weekend we are going to be visited by some very chilly weather.  The weatherman said that the old Alberta Clipper is on its way (thank you Alberta Canada for sharing).  By Monday we will not get above zero.  Yep, our high temperature is only going to be –4.  That is indeed a negative number.  So since the weather outside is frightening what is a teacher/homeschooler to do…winter activities of course.  First off we have been reading several books with a winter theme to them.  One of the perennial favorites is Bill Martin & Eric Carle’s Polar Bear, Polar Bear What do You Hear?  So I found a very cute art project to go along with this book.  It is from Deep Space Sparkle, a blog/website that I follow for children’s art.  She has a really great website with all kinds of art projects for kids.  I like that they are organized by grade/age so it is easy to find projects appropriate for my sweeties.  Although I didn’t get photos of all of the steps, I did get some of the process and the final result, and they are adorable.

We followed the instructions for making the background paper, and used the templates to make the polar bear. The kids really enjoyed this project which spanned a couple of days (waiting time for paint to dry and such), and I think they both were quite proud of the final piece.

The Director cutting out the polar bear parts.

Adding some googly eyes (which I don’t think were in the instructions, but they just can’t resist them).

I decided to hang them on the north wall that we have labeled for our map skills, and thought the fact that my sign says “North Pole” was appropriate.  The Director agreed.  Aren’t they cute?

Of course there is more to winter than just art, there is learning too. Here Sweet Pea is practicing her counting skills with the Pocket Chart Math from my Winter is Snow Much Fun! pack.

There are five cards for each number and there are numbers to 10.  You could also put a magnet on the back and use them with a magnet board.  She loves putting the cards into the pocket chart though so that is why I chose this way to use it.

We have been working on color words, so here she did a Mitten color by number also from the Winter Fun pack. She used watercolors.

Here she is working on her Beginning Sound Clip Cards.  She looks at the picture on the mitten, then clips the correct letter that makes the sound.  I got the little clips in the dollar section at Target last year.  I always check out what is in the dollar section every time I shop at Target to see if there is anything we can use.

Marshmallows and Hot Cocoa counting.  This is a little mat with a large cup of cocoa on it, she picks the number card from the pile (they are upside down) then counts out that many marshmallows to go into the cup. She did this several times with all the numbers.

Right now she is just counting one to one, but very soon I am going to use the mat from the set that is for beginning addition.  She will pick one card and put that many marshmallows on the cup, then pick another number card, and add that many marshmallows and then add them together for the total. 

Ok…so here is some real snow fun.  This was our first snowfall of the season, and they couldn’t wait to get out there and play in it.  Quite a bit of this snow has melted, but I am sure there will be more. Snow is definitely for kids, parents and grandparents are not nearly as amused by it, at least not this grandparent.

Thanks for stopping by, and hopefully you enjoyed our Snow Much Fun!!!