Tot School Show & Tell: S is for SNOW

~ Chunky Monkey is 23 months ~

It's January, no better time in Michigan than to cover "snow"

and we didn't get as much as the Northeast, but we've had some inches.

We did our posterboard daily which covered the following:

Letter: S (worked on it's sound)

Color: White (means "righteous")

Shape: Circle and a poem about a snowball

Number: 15 (means "free")

Verse: Psalm 51:7

Vocabulary Word: Snowflakes

Sound: -ow (row, tow, mow, blow, throw, snow, grow, show, bow)

And I pulled out our mailbox that I put a magnetic letter "S" in

and the "S" word cards that I printed out from the S Packet at 1+1+1=1.

I sing the following little diddy:

I've got a letter, I've got a letter

Let's look and see, Let's look and see

What letter do we have today?

What letter do we have today?

(open box)

It's the Letter S, It's the Letter S!

Then we review each of the "S" words in the box.

Then we did activities each day, here are some of the ones we did:

Skinny Minnie and Chunky Monkey both played a math game together.

Chunky Monkey rolled the die and Skinny Minnie graphed what was rolled.

This was a great game for not only math, but for team work!

I pulled out the lacing card that I got from Oriental Trading.

He surprised me because he really liked doing this!

He sat and did this activity for about 30 minutes on his own.

He kept trying to figure out how to get it into the holes.

After a couple days of practice and he had it down.

Will be adding more of these type activities in the future.

We worked on name recognition by making a snowman

out of the letters of his name.  He drew the face all by himself.

We reviewed the letters in his name each day after making this.

I printed out the floor numbers from Confessions of a Homeschooler

preschool "S is for Snowman" post, but only did numbers 1 - 5.

I gave him white pony beads for "snow balls" and had him

put that many beads on the numbered cards.

We practiced this every other day.

So it's too cold to go outside here in Michigan, with temps below zero.

So, I went outside and filled a bin with snow and brought it INSIDE.

Gave him a watercolor pallette, brush and cup of water and let him

have at it! He painted the snow and then decided he wanted

to touch it.  At first, it was too cold, then he got used to it.

Then he made me build snowmen and snowballs that he could throw.

Painting a melted a snowman!

I gave him blue construction paper and silver paint glob with a brush.

He had fun smearing it everywhere... thus a melted snowman!

And of course, we made snowman lanterns (got the idea from Pinterest).

I velcroed the little battery operated tea lights to the bottom of the jug,

only because these two are pretty rough with everything!

When I turned on the lights, Chunky Monkey thought it was a real

candle and tried to blow it out and brother followed suit!

Then they had an adventure in the dark with their lanterns.

Big Brother wasn't too keen on no lights, but Chunky Monkey

was in heaven! He was running everywhere with that light and watching

it shine on the ceiling or the wall or light his path - so much fun to watch!

That was a highlight of our Snow Tot School.

What did you do for January?

Have Fun and Be a Blessing!

~Bekah

Snow Theme (PreK-1)

Happy New Year! We ended up with a "Frozen" world here in the Great Lakes state.  Hit with an ice storm and so thankful God kept our power on, when everyone around us had lost theirs.  Then this past week we were buried with snow, not sure how much, our ruler got buried and I have no idea where it is anymore?! Roughly around 18" or so of snow.  So to start our first week back into school after the holidays what a perfect time to do a snow theme! With plenty of snow in the yard, a little too cold to play in since arctic chill hit us with -30+ degrees in wind chill, I mean brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, especially for me since I am NOT the snow bunny! I mean I literally despise winter and it's WAY too long in this state.  But just because I don't like it, doesn't mean my kids won't, so snow fun here we go!!!

Here is our circle time board:

Every morning we reviewed the poster board, calendar, weather, read a book about snow, and did our morning discussion.  Here is what we discussed each day:

1. Did you know snowflakes are all different?

2. What can you make in snow?

3. How is snow formed?

4. What are snow caps?

5. How do you build a snowman?

Our Bible time began with our daily prayer each day.  My Funky Monkey has this prayer memorized now, so he leads me in it - which is just awesome!

Our Bible Point is "God's Child is Forgiven!" So, we read the following Bible stories this week:

1. The Prodigal Son

2. Jesus' Death on the Cross

3. Jonah and the Whale

4. Jacob and Esau

We discussed how each story showed us that God's Child is Forgiven.  Taught him what "forgiveness" means and what it looks like.

And we made our verse page to add to our "Bible" Journal, here it is:

And of course he earned his award for memorizing his Scripture.  We are going to make a journal page for each verse this year and review them on a monthly basis.  God is showing me more and more that this is the importance to our homeschool, it's our foundation.  To seep my children in the Word of God!

Here is a glimpse of the rest of the activities we did this week:

Making Snow Cream!

Click HERE for the recipe.

We made both vanilla and chocolate.

Chocolate was his favorite!

Chunky Monkey had no preference, he wanted BOTH!

Snowflake Bead Craft

We got this from Oriental Trading.

First he sorted all the beads out by color.

Then using a pattern, put the beads on each

side of the snowflake.

And voila! Beautiful snowflake!

He chose to hang it in our new school area.

Science Experiment

We talked about what freezing point is.

I gave him a thermometer and had him put it

in different areas to read it.

(1) The window pane to read outside temp of -10*F

(2) The freezer to read temp of -25*F

(3) The refrigerator to read temp of 36*F

Then I asked him if we filled balloons up with water,

would it freeze into ice outside? He said yes, so 

we tested it! Our balloon ended up more like

and ice bowl instead of an ice ball though. But it did freeze!

Our Math Workbox!

We are working on the one's addition facts.

So I have snowman drill cards, giant buttons,

addition puzzles for one facts, and cubes.

We also used this song to help learn the addition

one facts, click HERE for video.

We learned the following for math lessons:

(1) Adding by counting on from the larger number

(2) Adding in any order (1+2=2+1)

(3) Writing addition stories

(4) Problem Solving Addition Stories

Addition Snowman Building Worksheet

He cut out the snowballs to build the snowman.

Each snowman has an addition problem on it,

and he is to put on the correct snowball to answer

the addition problem.

To help him solve the problems, he decided to

use the giant buttons.  So, if a question was 1+2, he

set out 1 button on side and 2 on the other to help

him solve the problem. 

Tens Frame Snowman Building

This worksheet is where he matched a tens frame

picture to the number on the snowman.

I set out a tens frame and he decided to use his cubes.

He placed the number of cubes into the tens frame,

which gave him a picture clue to match to the picture

tens frame on the final snowball to build the snowman.

Language Arts Workbox

Worked on the following:

(1) -ow word family, sentence building, and reading

(2) sight words (down, up, here, go) and reviewing the past 20 we learned

(3) handwriting for letter S and journal prompts 

"OW" Worksheet from Wordway

Writing "OW" and completing words.

Sight Word Search

He used his stampers to find the sight words.

Handwriting Practice

I have these great dry erase journals with

handwriting lines.  I write the capital and lowercase

letter and a sentence for him.  He writes his own

capital/lowercase letter and the sentence underneath

mine.  He is getting better and better with writing!

And he decided to draw a picture for the sentence too.

We studied the state of Alaska this week.

Learned the basic facts (capital, motto, nickname, flower, bird)

And learned some interesting facts too...

(1) the flag was created by a 13 year old boy

(2) has the largest active volcano chain

Science Experiment: Icy Roads

I froze water in a cookie sheet outside and then brought

it inside (again, too cold to go outside, -16*F in the day!)

Of course both my kids are interested in it, right away!

Funky Monkey tried to push cars in a straight line across

the ice and found out real quick that they always spin out.

Chunky Monkey liked dropping cars onto the ice and 

trying to play in it, till he got too cold, then he was done!

Then we talked about freezing point again.  And asked

him what we could use to help the cars drive better?

He said salt - that's my northerner for you!

So, we put salt down and again talked about freezing point

and how salt lowers the freezing point.  And then talked about

how salt doesn't work when it is too cold outside, like the temps

we are experiencing this week outside.  So, what else could we use?

He thought pepper might work, but it didn't.  So, I suggested sand and

he was like, let's see.  So, I gave him "sand", it was actually

cornmeal, since I didn't have any sand on hand.  And that helped

the cars drive much easier across the ice.

Arctic Freeze CVC Center Activity

After turning over his card and spelling out the word

on the game board, he then writes the word into the correct

picture box that matches the card.

Here he is working hard!

He did really good!

Another Oriental Craft - Rhinestone Snowflake!

I got this snowflake shaped dry erase sticker cling

from Oriental Trading.  It's pretty awesome!

And it fits into our winter themes very nicely.

I use it to post the date and our morning question of the day.

Our Snowman and Melting Snow Ball Bath!!!

These 2 had a blast finding all the stuff in their bath

and exploring melting snow balls (shaving cream).

Finally got warm enough to go outside, the arctic air

ceased and we actually got into the 30's!!!

So that meant snow play time and with all this snow

we got to build a BIG snowman!!!

Daddy and Funky Monkey working together!

Patting the snowman's belly! hehe

Awww, he likes WARM HUGS!!!!

That was a glimpse of our snow themed week.  We did cover lots of other stuff too, but I didn't get pictures of everything.  Next week... PENGUINS!

Until next time...

Have Fun and Be a Blessing!

~Bekah