Winter Fun!

      Good morning!  In just a few short days I will be headed back to school.  As I prepare myself for January I was reflecting back on December.  I want to make one comment as I go forth.  I am an avid blog and instagram stalker and a pinterest follower to many wonderful, extraordinary teachers.  I love all the wonderful ideas floating around out there!!  I often ask myself...how do they do it?   In particular...how do they have time for all that "cute" stuff.  I love cute stuff as much as the next teacher.  Trust me...anyone who knows me knows I am a lover of all things cute!   

       Well, as we prepared to go on break, I decided I was making time for some "cute." We took a break from our reading series and we had "snow much fun."  We read some of my favorite snowman books and made these cute little guys.

{Snowmen at Night}

These guys are all over pinterest in varying forms.  I love them!  I know a lot of teachers do their "snowman" fun in January...but I have several students who do not celebrate Christmas so I could not do "Christmas cute" and I knew that January would be jam packed with mid-year testing and, hopefully, a couple snow days!   

      We also made our "Handprint" ornaments.  Yet another wonderful idea that is all over pinterest.  

   

Something I did do this year that I will definitely do again...I bought large, flat ornaments that look like this....

   

    They were so much easier for my firsties to hold and decorate than the round ones!

        Aside from that we did do a little science!  I had seen an idea from a 3rd or 4th grade teacher to do "Candy Cane" Science.  I have been making a very conscious effort to do more science in my classroom so I decided this would be perfect!  I made this little recording sheet...

{Candy Cane Science}

Click on picture to get your own copy!

Before beginning we made a chart of our predictions and the students were amazed to see what happened to their candy canes.  Several of the students said their candy canes "melted."  After break, I am going to take time to discuss this and do another experiment where we melt the candy canes so they can see the difference.  Please check back to see how that goes!!  I will keep you posted.  

         I hope your first day back, if you haven't already had it, is a great one!