Snow Play

We have been having so much fun with all of the snow blanketing Connecticut these days.

Yesterday was perfect for making snow creatures. We tried the rolling ball method and found that too difficult for the fours. Then I showed them the shovel method where we made a huge pile of snow and then carved out our creature-who made her way in to being a girl eventually.

I raided the art center bringing out a tray of materials and the artists went to work. Don’t you just love her hair?  This spontaneous snow girl building also caused me to change the story I had planned for the day.  Snowballs is a fantastic book and should be part of every winter library. 

The other passion of my students has been sledding. We have a wonderful hill on our playground.

We didn’t supply sleds, so they used their creativity with the help of a fun loving dad and began sledding down on our plastic shovels.

Although this was closely monitored, the handles caused some concern, so we brought out plastic trays.

We brought out three trays and have 16 children, so they are getting an excellent opportunity to practice their self control and patience as they wait for a turn.

At the bottom of the hill we have a row of tires as a landing barrier and to prevent anyone sledding closer to the equipment.
It was great fun!

I hope you are getting your students outside every day. We go out twice a day unless it is below 22 degrees. It did take some parent education on the necessity of proper snow clothes including waterproof boots, gloves/mittens and snow pants. It also takes an extra dose of patience as a teacher to help dress and undress 16 children. They are all getting much more independent with all this practice.

Aside from the wonderful learning opportunities, the squeals of delight from the students make it all worth it!

And one more thing…

Allow yourself to have some fun WITH them!
Chloe’s chants of Da-na! Da-na! led to this…