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Working in a Winter Wonderland & Friday Freebies

Happy Friday everyone!  Wow, these last two weeks have gone by so fast!  I have been working most of the time, but I was able to get lots more done than usual due to my smaller class size.  Read on for ideas and fabulous Friday Freebies!

Freebie Fridays

As January comes we are moving into Transportation, but I know many of my friends will be doing Winter and Winter Animals and so on.  (Yes, you read right... a whole MONTH on transportation.  One week for Holidays Around the World, but a whole month for Transportation.  I don't understand our curriculum!)  Here's some of the highlights of our winter weeks (with some New Year's stuff mixed in):


Our New Year's Resolutions (special learning wishes) and party hats.  :)

Art:

New Year's Fireworks


Perhaps it goes without saying, but we did lots of art projects these past few weeks!  I loved their New Year's fireworks.  First they used different colored crayons to draw fireworks on black paper.  Then they traced glue over the fireworks and sprinkled with glitter.  I am SO proud of how well they can handle glue now!  They've grown so much!  *sniff*


Puffy Paint Snowmen


What fun!  We made these snowmen after reading Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.  The kids had a blast using puffy paint and various fun objects, including yarn, buttons and puff balls.

Shape Snowmen


Yes, we made lots of snowmen this week!  We made them in our snow sensory table, with play-dough, with shapes... We were trapped inside quite a bit due to low temperatures, so we had to something.  :)  The kiddos cut out shapes I had traced onto different colors of construction paper, identified the shapes, and then assembled them together to make a snowman.  I have to admit they ended up looking like duck snowmen!

Math:

3-D Shape Sort



Many thanks to Nicole at Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten!  She provided this free 3-D shape sort last January on her blog, which you can grab by clicking here.  She also includes Rectangular Prisms.

3-D Shape Memory



We adapted the shape sort cards shown above and played 3-D Shape Memory!  This was a fabulous game and really helped reinforce 3-D Shape recognition.

Literacy:

Poetry


My kiddos LOVED reading this cute poem I found from Jennifer at Simply Kinder.  They thought it was hilarious!  (Or maybe it was just my illustrations...)  They also illustrated a copy of the poem in their writing journals.  Some groups went on a hunt through the poem to find the letter S, others focused on identifying the rhyming words and generating more.

Handwriting


Speaking of the letter S, we spent some time this week talking about the letter S, what it sounds like, how to write it, so on and so forth.  We used letter racers from my Racing in a Winter Wonderland packet.  Grab a free letter S Snowman Racer Freebie by clicking on the picture below!  The freebie is in the preview for the packet.


Writer's Workshop

First of all, many thanks to DeeDee at Mrs.Wills Kindergarten for turning me onto ISSUU!  Check out her blog post here about it.  I can already tell I'm going to love using this to showcase student writing!

I just loved the books my kiddos wrote these last few weeks during writer's workshop.  No one's really taken up the invitation to write using rhyming words (but then my strongest writers are out of town).  Still, I love how everyone's stories had a clear beginning, middle and end!  Their illustrations were also absolutely AMAZING.  And I was super excited to see some random letters popping up.  In some cases, the letters even made phonological sense for the meaning they were trying to convey!

Here are some of my favorites below (will add more as soon as I get the hang of this ISSUU thing!):


Phonemic Awareness



You have to check out this awesome song from Harry Kindergarten!  "Snowball Fight" is a great song for reinforcing letter sounds, and it's fun to boot!  :)

Here's a look at some of the great books we read or had available in the Library and Listening Center these past few weeks:


And now for my last Friday Freebie!  I realized I forgot to post this cute song about hibernation/migration during Signs of Winter, so here it is now.  Enjoy!

Comments

  1. Cute firework idea! I am going to file that idea away for next year!
    We just did puffy snowmen today! The kids loved it! And they came out SO cute! I will be posting about it this weekend! It's such a great sensory activity that turns into a cute art project!

    Happy New Year!

    Sara
    Teaching Munchkins

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Sara! Happy New Year to you too! :) I love puffy snowmen, can't wait to see how yours turn out.

    ~Jessica

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very Cute stuff, Thnks for the freebie, I am your newest follower, please come by and check me out, I am new to blogging. Abc 123 Kindergarten classroom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by and following! :)

      ~Jessica

      Delete
  4. What a great post! I featured your song on Freebie Friday this week! Come check yourself out!
    ~Fern
    Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas!
    Fern Smith's Pinterest Boards!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Fern, I feel so honored! :) I love sharing freebies and I'm so glad you can use my song with your kiddos too!

      ~Jessica

      Delete

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