Snowflake Art

Here's a little snowflake project we did last week...

I know it's hard to read in the picture, but the poem underneath says: Thank you, God, for winter fun and snowflakes from above. Thank you, God, for sending us your blessings and your love. Amen

Thanks for checking in and stay warm!

Roll a Snowman...felt style!

Happy Winter! We are still in the deep freeze here and since we have to endure winter anyway, we might as well make it fun, right? I saw this Roll a Snowman game made out of felt on Pinterest. I LOVED that it was made out of felt instead of paper...our kids get so much laminated paper, I thought the felt might be fun for a change. I came up with my own version that looks like this:

I made a set of 4 snowmen, along with enough accessories for each one to have a  hat, 2 wiggly eyes, a nose, *smile*, scarf, and 3 buttons. All of the pieces are kept in a plastic shoe box for easy storage and clean up. (You could also adapt it and use 2 dice, but you would need more pieces, like arms and boots.)

I scanned all of the pieces if you'd like a *faux* felt game! You need to print 4 (right click save the image to your computer first) of the first one, so you have enough bodies, noses, and eyes.

(print 4 copies of this one)

(print 1)

(print 1)

I made a trip to the Dollar Tree over the weekend and found these fun things to use in my classroom:

I haven't opened the magnetic letters yet to check them out, but you can never have too many of those, right?? The pink and red hearts will make good counters or game pieces. I also bought the red plastic shoe box, just cuz I like'd it! I am sure I'll find a use for it. They had a variety of colors. Apparently, January is a good time to get storage items there. = )

Thanks for checking in and have a super day!

More or fewer snowman project...

Hello! Catching up on sharing one more winter activity we did last week. We made snowmen; each snowball had a letter of the children's name...(there are a few examples out there on pinterest of this project). Since we were working with more/fewer in math, the children compared their snowman to someone's who had more or fewer snowballs.

It was fun to see the different sizes of snowmen!

Our Hot Chocolate Day!

Whew! We made it to Friday! We had another fun and busy week. Today was our "Hot Chocolate Day." I like to do this the last Friday in January to bring closure to our winter activities. We answer the question: Do you like marshmallows in your hot chocolate? Yes or No. Last year I did a graph; this year the children just wrote their names on the appropriate side.

I saw this idea on pinterest and made my own version

(Clip art by DJ Inkers)

The children glued small white squares on the page instead of real marshmallows. Then we had hot chocolate to drink, with or without marshmallows...

...in REAL mugs! No plastic or paper here (except for the spoons!!). Yum! Yum! It was a lot of fun! Now I have 18 mugs sitting on my table to wash, but that's ok. : ) I borrowed them from the lunch room in case you are wondering.

I had a slight case of laryngitis this week...that always makes for interesting days, doesn't it??? Tuesday morning I told the class I needed to get a drink of water (we were at the circle doing calendar). I stepped over to my desk and could hear conversation going on...when I got back, the children had decided I should probably get my tonsils out. That would help my throat and it doesn't even hurt! You  get "sleeping gas" and then your tonsils just disappear! Ha! Too cute! That's why I love kindergarten!! Thanks for checking in! Enjoy your day!

Counting by 10's Snowflakes

Hi! Just a quick little post today to share our "Counting by 10's" snowflake activity....another center inspired by Mrs. Lee. The children put the snowflakes in order from 10-100, then colored and wrote the numbers in the correct order.

(Snowflake clip art by DJ Inkers)

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

A few pics from the week...

Hello! It's been a busy week for us; we are the end of our semester...that means lots of assessments, report cards, and DIBELS coming next week.  Here is a class book we did as part of our MLK activities this week. Each child traced and cut out a hand so we had a few of each color.

The title is Hand in Had with Martin Luther King. Blue is for loyalty, yellow is for peace, orange is for trust, brown is for brotherhood, white is for friendship, and red is for love.

We also did these coffee filter snowflakes to hang up in our classroom.

Thanks for checking in...hope you had a good weekend!

Mitten Glyph

Hello! As promised, I have a picture of the mitten glyph we did this past week. I had a parent volunteer come in and she did this with the children. It's pretty simple; I photocopied  a mitten on green and blue paper.

Here are the questions they answered for the glyph:

We practiced sight words with a roll and color game. I printed a snowman with sight words in each space (not my original idea!!) and the children had to read the word they rolled and color in the correct space. They did this with partners.

Did you know Kohls has these???

Have a great day! Thanks for checking today!

Snowman Measurement

Hello! We've been working on measurement in math. We completed a couple of projects/centers I found online this week. I've always done a snowman, painted white on blue construction paper; this year I added the measuring component...I found this on Pinterest from Mrs. Lee's website: click here to visit her website and view the original project.

Here is my version...

I love how these turned out; they are hanging in the hall outside of our classroom door.

We did the farm measurement center activity (our story for reading this week was about a farm) from Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos. I tried to find the exact link to the printable, and couldn't find it! Sorry! If I find it, I will add it. The children used unifix cubes to measure the animals. We also used marshmallows to measure mittens...this activity is from Musings of Me. (I'm not sure if she is still posting her printables or not. I printed this one last winter.) I love being able to print items like this and have them all ready to use!! 

We did our mitten glyphs today; tomorrow we are going to analyze the data. I will post pictures then, but this is the glyph:

It's pretty simple and easy; I had a parent volunteer come in and she did this with the class today. Thanks for checking in and have a good evening!

Snowflake Art

Hello! I have a cute art idea to share with you....we did these last Friday...today we had record highs in MN in the 50's!!! I can't believe it! But, the forecast says changes are coming and cold weather is heading our way, so I am enjoying it while I can.  I gave the children 3 strips of white paper and some (they chose how many they wanted to use) white squares. They could design a snowflake using the shapes, any way they wanted. (I've seen pictures of snowflakes made using pattern block shapes, similar to this on pinterest.)

As you can see, some designs were very simple; others a little more intricate. I thought they all turned out unique...just like real snowflakes!

(The blue paper is 12 x 12.)

Tomorrow we will be working on a mitten glyph. We painted snowmen and measured them...a Pinterest inspired project...I will share photos tomorrow. Thanks for checking in!

Thank You and Snowflake Writing...

Hello! I hope everyone who is back at school this week is having a good one! It can always be a little challenging to get back into the swing of things after Christmas break! Before I tell you about our SNOWFLAKE writing center, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who started following my blog! I realize there are so many great teaching blogs out there...I am grateful to everyone who checks in just to see what's happening in my little corner of the kindergarten world. : ) My goal has been to post and share ideas that work for me, or share other great ideas/links I see online. I do not have a TpT store or sell items, but hopefully you still can find something here you can use!! We are all in this together and I believe the more we share and learn from each other, the more we can help our kids. Anyway...thanks again!

Onto our writing center...I die cut the word SNOWFLAKE and made an activity sheet for the children to write all of the words they could make out of the letters. When I introduced this activity, some of them immediately said, "I see 'no!' They also came up with "we, so, snow, and of."  Here's a picture of the center:

I like the big letters because they can move them around and manipulate them to come up with words. I also set up a sight word play dough center. There are quite a few pics of centers like this on Pinterest. Here is my version:

I put letter cookie cutters in the basket with the activity sheet and a set of colored pencils for them to record the words they made. I also hung up two word lists for them to use. They are not limited to these words, but it is helpful for those who need it.

They can use the cookie cutters to cut out the words, or just stamp them into the play dough.  Thanks for checking in and have a great evening!

Classroom Update for January

Hello! I went to my classroom for a few hours this morning to make the switch from December to January. There's always so much to get done....I didn't accomplish everything on my "to-do" list, but feel good about it none the less.  (At least while I was working in my classroom,  I wasn't snacking all morning...like I have been at home!!)  Here are a few pictures of my room...

I have 6 of these pretty blue snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. I bought them at the Dollar Tree several years ago.  Ironically, I live in southern MN and we don't have even one single flake of snow on the ground!! This was our first "brown" Christmas since 2006 and today it's in the 40's. But hey, I am not complaining, because even though I live here, I do not like the COLD!

I put these snowmen on the door for "Read the Room." Each one has just the item in the sentence colored. These were super simple to make. I also have a smaller version for the children to color the items and fill in the color words. They can choose their own colors; they do not have to match the posters.

I made a "label the snowman" activity for my writing center...I saw this in December done with a Santa picture and thought it'd be great for January done with a snowman.

I have this one hanging up for the children to use as a model and blank pages in the writing area.

I have seen SO MANY great literacy ideas on Pinterest...like this:

 and this:

I've been working to create similar activities, but adapted them to meet my students' needs...so I am not going to share something that isn't my own idea; these teachers deserve the credit!! Thought you might be inspired by them, too.  I just LOVE all of the creativity and inspiration out there!! Thanks for checking in. Enjoy your day!

Cute January Pins

Hello! I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and can relax over the next few days before heading back to school. My family and I had a wonderful holiday, blessed with lots of family time and good food. : ) I am taking a break from school things...at least I did for a bit...by baking and scrapbooking. I have, however, been Pinning some awesome ideas for January. Here are a few winter projects I am looking forward to doing...

Gotta love Pinterest!!! I've been working on a couple of winter printables of my own...here is an activity sheet I made to help my class practice printing lowercase letters.

 Thanks for checking in and have a great day!