The Mitten and The Snowy Day

Our schedule has been all wonky with a week lost to snow days and two days of delayed start times so we are all just trying to CRAM in as much as we can when we are in class!!

I really enjoy this book and all that can be learned about animals in winter, sharing, habitats, etc.  I wanted to stretch this theme into math by introducing counting by two's using this story.  I started by collecting as many inexpensive mittens as I could get my hands on the past few weeks.  Target's Dollar Spot was a good choice but Walmart also had two pairs for $1-an even better deal!

We started by giving everyone a mitten (1/2 of a pair).  They needed to notice how the mittens were alike and how they were different but how they were all used for the same purpose.  Of course, it came up that some were for girls and some were for boys! 

Next, everyone had to find their "match".

I know this is cheesetastic, I was trying to get the mister to smile since he had to match up to my mitten.  He WASN'T buying it!

Next, every pair got a clothespin with a number on it (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.).

We then clipped them to the clothesline hung over our math board.  Then we practiced and practiced counting by two's.

During math rotations, the extra mittens were placed at a group for the children to pair up and figure out which numbers would come next after 20.

Mrs. Lawson and her daughter came in that afternoon and she read The Mitten to our class.  She bought the book as a gift for them!  Thank you, Mrs. Lawson!

A math job that I got from Deanna Jump-I believe!  It also could have been from Growing Kinders!  I have downloaded SO much from these two ladies that I am having trouble remembering where I got these great activities!

A mitten follow up activity counting by two's.

Snowflake Addition

We are continuing to work on our Winter Books. 
We will add a page for The Mitten next week.

I got the idea for looking out of your window to see a snowman's profile from Musings of Me.  We will add black strips of construction paper to make our window.

They are loving this poem!  We will add it to our Poetry Journals on Friday.

Today we were delayed coming to school because we were supposed to have four inches of snow.  We didn't.  But we went ahead anyway.  I love that one of my girls noticed the pretty gold medal on the cover.  She knew that that meant this was a special book.  :) 

At my table, we wrote what we did on one of our snowy days the week before last.  I provided the sentence starter,"On my snowy day, I..."  they had to finish the sentence themselves. 

At another rotation, the children made themselves as they would look if they had a snowy day with Peter.

This is another page in our Winter Book.

I love all of their different versions of the same thing!!

I have the snowflakes all ready for our Snowflake Experiment on Friday!

Hibernation

I just posted the printables that I used this week for our Animals in Winter mini unit.  The first page is an action poem to get the kids moving.  The second page is a copy of the same poem to use for Poetry Journals.  The last three pages I mounted on construction paper for us to read together and then post near our "bear cave". 

Hibernation Printables

Hibernation Printables

Update on January Math Centers, Animals in Winter, Happy New Year!

Well, we tried out our new math centers this week and I was

happy with the end result! 

The only thing that I felt needed to be changed was to add number markers to the Snowflake Sort.  It was too hard for them to just remember how many items were sorted otherwise.  The markers made the number concept much more concrete.  Even though I explained and modeled this game whole group, I sat with each small group as they had their turn with this game to walk them through the process.  The kids were able to manage the other math centers independently while I helped with Snowflake Sort.



I downloaded the Snowman Number Cards from another blog and I honestly can not find it now.  If you happen to know where these cards came from, please let me know!
  I bought the snowflake ornaments (for the mini trees) at the Hob Lob on Christmas clearance for 80% off! 



I also downloaded these number cards from the same mystery blog.
 I wrote the numbers on one side of the clothespin and the number word on the other side.

A practice page for recognizing, counting and graphing shapes.

Our science focus this week was on Animals in Winter. 
What an excellent book to start off this mini unit.

We have already talked a great deal about hibernation and even have our class bear in his den hibernating with a colony of bats!  This was an opportunity to talk about other animals that hibernate.

We charted what we know about animals in winter now.  We divided animals into three groups-animals that hibernate, animals that migrate and animals that hunt for food in winter.

We wrote facts for our Winter Book.

We made a den for our bears to hibernate for the long, cold winter. 
Messy BUT fun!
I used Styrofoam cups with an opening cut out glued onto a small paper plate, brown paper and snowflakes glued onto the cup, raffia on the "floor" of the den, cotton on the outside and the cute little brown bears
(I finally found them at Hobby Lobby in the dollhouse section-$1.49 for a package of four).



A sample of our Animals in Winter page of our Winter Book. 
 I didn't realize that the face of the bear didn't show up very well!



I wanted to show Ms. Potts' New Year's page for our big Kindergarten Scrapbook that will go home at the end of the year. 
She saw a photo of this page on http://thoughtsofesme.blogspot.com/ and decided to try it. 
The goals that the children wrote for themselves were too sweet!

My goal for 2011 is to not fight with my brother!

We are adding a page to our Alphabet Scrapbook every week. 
This is "Flower in the Field".



Dog in the Doghouse!

I'll add more photos as we add pages to our Winter Book. 

This is my first year to make one with my class.  I decided, why not?! 

We make a book for everything else!!! 

I can organize mini lessons better seasonally into a unit book. 

OCD, Type A or just a teacher? 

You be the judge...