Waterless Snowglobes

I've always wanted to make snowglobes with the children but usually cannot gather enough baby food or small jars for everyone.

I was at Michaels after Christmas and found these cute little snowmen ornaments at a great price.  

Perfect to fit in little plastic cups from the dollar store.

Yay all we needed to do was cut out a paper circle, glue and add glittery snow.

This is how we made them.

 Trace

 Cut

 Glue

 Scoop

 Glue some more

We have been using glue guns a lot lately so the parents are becoming more comfortable allowing their children to use them.

This craft was a lot of fun to make together.

And the globes were fun to shake after they were complete.

Still no snow for us here.  We may have to go on a fieldtrip up the mountain to enjoy some snow.

One Mitten

This week we read the book by Kristine O'Connell George called One Mitten

As I introduced the book I passed around a basket and asked the children to pick one mitten each.
As we read the book we copied what the little girl, in the book, could do with one mitten.

Making shadow puppets, waving and petting a cat were a few of the actions.

Then under the cat (you can see in the picture above) the little girl finds her second mitten.
I pass the basket around again and ask each child to pick a second mitten.  Most time it works that they pick the match but not always and that's okay.
We then follow the actions for two mittens.

The children really enjoyed following the book this way.
After a couple of story times I left the basket of mitts out with the book for the families to play with.

I saw mitten matching, counting, and patterning.

Rolling Pin Painting

Personally I love wooden rolling pins.

I love how they feel and move in and under my hands.

So gluing textures to them and letting the children paint was a natural idea.

We had four rolling pins with different textures attached.

 One covered with rubber bands and the other bubble wrap.

 Another with rope glued on and the last had foam snowflakes attached.

 The children handle the pins with ease.

Using their whole body to experience the pins limits.

 They combined the pins

and created new looks.

I also provided stamps with other textured designs.

Which added more colour but in finer detail.

Smashed Potato Snowpeople

Note: No potatoes were hurt (or used) in the making of this craft.

But the children did have a lot of fun using potato mashers to make these snowpeople. 

I found this book "Snowman's Big Job" that inspired this project.

It shows pictures of snowmen doing various jobs, even a fire fighter, which I found funny.

Wouldn't he melt if he tried to put out a fire?

 I found various kinds of potato mashers

 and this springy whisk

for the children to make snowflakes on a snowman shape.

Then provided extra materials to create their snowman's character.

 A ballerina?

This child is adding the final detail, hair.

Day two of rain, no snow in sight:(

Winter Tray Play

First day back at school and in a new school.

It has been a fun day watching the families become with familiar with the new centre.

I'll post about the new centre soon.

But today I want to share our winter play trays.

Four trays are available to play with on this table but the most attractive to the children this morning involved marshmallows.

It was almost automatic for each child to want to eat the marshmallows but once explained that they were to play with them, they were okay with it.

I heard counting, saw matching marshmallows to circles and cups of hot chocolate.

As well as fine motor control by using the strawberry huller to pick up the marshmallows.

Here are quick pics of the other trays out today.

 Kaleidoscopes,

 snowglobes on a mirror,

scale with snowflakes.

I'm really hoping for snow soon.

Here is the worksheet.  Feel free to copy, paste and print.

Pete the Cat On Tour

I've had to close a few days early this December because of our school closing and relocating.
So I planned a field trip to our local library.
I mentioned to the librarian that Pete the Cat would be with us and would like a tour of the library.
This is how our morning went.

Pete met the families and had them sign in.

While we waited for everyone to arrive there was gingerbread to decorate and books to read.

This is Mary, the librarian, talking to the families about what the library has to offer (check out the Lit Kits - they're great) and how to get a library card.

 When we turned to get Pete to start the tour, he had disappeared.

But we found this note where he was sitting.

 Ahh, a clue.

 We searched by the music CDs but didn't find Pete only another clue.

 Then he sent us over by the children's cookbooks but we found cat kibbles.
Pete must have been hungry.
One more clue led us to one of Pete's favourite authors, Mo Wilhems. 

 We searched all the shelves till we found the 'w'.

 And there he was beside the book "Don't let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus"

The children were happy to have him back.

We had one more stop on our field trip.

That was to see the gingerbread displays.

Our Candy Castle won first place in the children's category.

But this was Pete's favourite - the Three Little Pigs.

The children liked it too.

It caused a discussion of what on it we could eat and what we couldn't.

They used toy pigs and a wolf 

but everything else was edible.