5 Little Snowmen

Materials: Construction paper, white paint, sharpie, orange marker, words to "5 little snowmen" (which is in the Snow lesson plan)
Directions: Paint and print your child's hand. Allow time for it to dry. And details with markers. Write or print and glue the words to "5 Little Snowmen" finger play. I put ours on the fridge so we can remember the words and look at it and do the fingerplay together.

Mittens

Materials: White paper, construction paper, yarn, makers, glue

Directions: Cut out two mittens from the white paper. Let your child color them with markers. Glue the top 1/2 of mitten down to construction paper and cut around the mitten for the colored border. Make sure you leave some of the bottom unglued so you can slip your yarn in. Slip the yarn between the 2 sheets of paper and complete gluing.

Polar Bears and Penguins: Feb 2-6

Songs:

Polar bear, Polar bear.

Polar bear, polar bear,
Twirl around.
Polar bear, polar bear,
Make no sound.

Polar bear, polar bear,
Dance on your toes.
Polar bear, polar bear,
Touch your nose.

I'm a Little Penguin
(Tune "I'm a Little Teapot")
I'm a little penguin, on the ice.
I think the cold is very nice.
I can hop around
first once, then twice.
I think ice is very nice

Books:

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? By Eric Carle
(Printable pieces to the story)

Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere! by Bob Barner
Check this book out on Lookybook

Vocabulary words: white, bear, penguin

Activities:
Monday: Groundhogs Day
Toilet paper roll Groundhog craft (for 3+)
Groundhog coloring page

Tuesday: Elmo's Birthday
Elmo coloring page and/or paint elmo's face

Wednesday: Polar bear craft

Thursday: Penguin finger painting craft

Friday:

Foot print penguin with poem

Come and see my penguin.
He’s as silly as can be.
I made him with my foot,
which is a part of me.

Tissue Paper Mitten

Click here for directions and photo of tissue paper mitten.

This is a really cute craft, so I thought I'd share it. If you have a younger child you could just have them paint or color the mitten.

Safety Time!

I got this email today from Sesame Street. They have set up this webpage to help parents review safety with their kids called Let's Get Ready: Planning Together for Emergencies. There are some printables and handy stuff on there, so check it out. :)

Click here for webpage!

Plan...or lack there of

I won't be posting a "plan" this week. I'm just going to be continuing on with snow/winter activities this week, but I'm going to be branching off towards more hats, mittens and boots. I have a lot going on this week, so I have decided that this week is going to be best as "play it by ear" for me and the little guy. Next week (Feb 2-6) I will be picking up my plans with "Penguins and Polar Bears" theme.

Popsicle Stick Snowflake

Materials: 3 popsicle sticks, glue, paint brush white paint

Directions: Glue popsicle sticks to form an X and then put a third horizontally through the X to form a snowflake. Allow glue to dry. Once dry, have your child use a paint brush to paint the snowflake white. You can sprinkle with glitter at the end and add a magnet to the back or a ribbon to the top.



**My son really liked this project. It went over much better than I thought it would. He was giggling the entire time he was painting. I plan on glittering it and putting a magnet on the back so I can hang it on my fridge. But first I have to get those things from the craft store! ;)

Handprint snowflake

Materials: Dark paper, white paint, paint brush

Directions: Paint your child's hand white. Place their hand down on the paper (try to have them spread their fingers- a little harder with younger kids). Then continue to do the same overlapping the palm.

If all the snowflakes were chocolate covered cup cakes...

Snowflakes and Cupcakes
(Tune: Raindrops and Lemon Drops)
If all the snowflakes were chocolate covered cupcakes
Oh, what a snow it would be!
I'd go outside with my mouth open wide (open mouth and stick out tongue)
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
If all of the snowflakes were chocolate covered cupcakes
Oh, what a snow it would be!

You can follow up this song by making chocolate cupcakes! :) Yum Yum!!

And here are a couple other snack/treat ideas:

Marshmallow Snowmen

Materials: Large marshmallows, pretzel sticks and raisins.

Description: Give each child 2 marshmallows, 3 pretzel sticks and a few raisins. Have them take a pretzel stick and put it into the middle of one of the marshmallows, then place the other marshmallow on top. Now take the other two pretzels and use them for the arms. Use the raisins for eyes, nose, and mouth.
Now EAT!

Snow ice cream
Blend: 2½ cups Milk,
2 beaten eggs,
1 ½ cups sugar,
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Whipped Cream Snow!

This is a really fun sensory activity for toddlers. You can add cars or people for them to play with in their snow. :) I just made 3 "snowballs" with the canned whip cream (but you can use any kind you'd like) and let my son go to town. Once his snow was pretty spread out I gave him a car to drive through it. He had a blast!

Snowman

Great book to go along with this activity: How to Build a Snowman (Little Scholastic)


Materials: White posterboard or construction paper, various colors of construction paper, glue, crayons, markers, and various collage materials (buttons, pom poms, etc)

Directions: Cut 3 circles out of posterboard or construction paper (I used various sized plates to make my circles). I allowed my son to color the body portions of the snowman with crayons, since he wouldn't be able to do any of the gluing and decorating. But older children can do all the decorating themselves with supervision. Construct the 3 circles to make a snowman and use your other materials to decorate and "dress" him. Hang at your child's eye level.

Pintable Winter Themed Books

Click here for a great free printable mitten counting book for preschoolers.

Free printable book of winter words (Scholastic).

Click here for more emergent reader books for preschoolers.

Lookybook

For those of you who read parenting magazine, you may have already been given a heads up on this site. For those that don't: check out Lookybook. This great site gives you access to online stories to read to your children. Wonderful for those days you can't get outside! Registration is free and you can search their titles by subject, genre and author. Happy online reading!

Snow bottle or jar

Materials: White paper, clear bottle or plastic jar, tinfoil (optional), hot glue or super glue

Directions: Basically make confetti out of your sheet of white paper. If you have an older child you can allow them to cut or tear the paper- both are great fine motor skills. If you want to add small pieces of tinfoil that is an option. You can also decorate the bottle or jar with snowflake stickers. (I did because I had them around from scrapbooking.) You don't have to add a lot of paper and tinfoil. Just enough to make about 1" piled in the bottom of your bottle or jar. Once you are done glue on the lid. Your child can shake up an instant snow storm in their bottle or jar!


For older kids try making a snowglobe. (Click for link to instructions.)

Welcome Winter (Little Scholastic)

Welcome Winter (Little Scholastic) is the book I selected for my son to go with this theme. It's a book we own (which is always a plus!) and it's "interactive" with tons of spots for him to touch so it holds his interest very well. I definitely recommend any of the little scholastic books for the under 2 crowd!

Welcome Winter at Amazon.com

Painting a snowstorm!

We are already a day behind (go figure!) because I didn't factor in my husband being off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. So here we are painting our snow storm.

Materials: dark construction paper, white tempra paint, glitter (optional)

Directions: Pretty simple. Just let them finger paint a "snow storm" on the construction paper. If you want you can add a little glitter, but I didn't because as you can see by my little man's lip he likes to taste his paint. ;)

Snow Theme: January 19-23

Snow

Week 3

Vocabulary Words: snow, cold, white

Books: Welcome Winter (Little Scholastic) and other snow/winter themed books

Rhyme/Song/Finger Play:

Five Little Snowmen

Five little snowmen on a winter's day
The first one said, "Wake up, so we can play"
The second one said, "Let's stomp on the ground."
The third one said, "Let's roll around."
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run."
The fifth one said, "I'm afraid I feel the sun."
"Oh dear," cried the snowmen, As they looked toward the sky.
And the five melting snowmen waved a fond goodbye

Activities:

Monday

“Snow paint”- white paint on dark paper (add glitter if wanted)

Play with snow or ice in a tub (emphasis on the word “cold”)

Tuesday

Color a snow picture

Snowflake jar- tear pieces of paper up small and put into a jar or bottle for “snow” in a bottle

Wednesday

Build a paper snowman

Thursday

Handprint snowflakes

White hunt, homemade white book

Whipcream snow play

Friday

Make snowflakes with popsicle sticks

Snow in a plastic bag