A Winter Wonderland of Learning Fun!

Friends~One more day!  That's it for 2012 in room 331.   We have spent the week in a winter wonderland.  We made Snow Bricks to go along with the book The Missing Mitten Mystery.  The bricks end up being the Christmas gift my kiddos take home to their family's.

Take a peek at the process!

It is such a super fun project and the book fits perfectly!

You can check out my lesson by clicking the image below.

We also made Flip Snowmen! We read another one of my very favorite Snowman books called The Biggest, Best Snowman.  I love this book because it retraces the steps of a little girl and her friends making a snowman to show her family that she is big enough.
Check out my SUPER SNOW UNIT by clicking the image below. 
 There is a video preview of the file to download:)

After we read the book, I then ask my students to retrace the steps for building the snowman and we discuss how the little girl's friends helped her.  I then tell them that they will be helping each other build a snowman.  I cut strips of paper into long rectangles and then we fold them so that we get 3 sections

We start with the bottom section first and draw the bottom of the snowman.  Then the fun begins!  I have my students switch places with each other and draw the middle and then switch again to draw the top.  With each switch. I make sure to tell the students to FLIP their work so the next person does not see it.  They also have to make sure that the keep it facing the same way.  It is always a hoot when they get back to their snowmen.  Check out some of them below!

We wrote a How To Build a Snowman on the back.  

We ended the day with an inferring adventure with the book The Snowman.  This is an amazing book about the journey of a snowman at night.  The catch is there are no words...only pictures.  We actually watch the movie and my students sit with their clipboards and watch the images.  They record their thinking on a sheet of paper focusing on questions, connections, and inferences.  At the end of the movie we gather in a circle to discuss our thinking.

Wish me luck tomorrow...It is Polar Express Day!