Since we live in Florida, most children here haven't experienced snow unless they have traveled to colder places. We try to provide lots of "winter" experiences and one of the favorites is our indoor snowball fight.
We start by crumpling white tissue paper. (I tried using toilet paper the first year I did this and the mess was horrible!) This is great for building up the small muscles! The children often complain that their hands are getting tired when they do this, but I tell them that the more paper they crumple, the more fun they will have.
We bring the "snowballs" into the multipurpose room next to our classroom and then the fun begins!
When it is time to clean
up, I bring out white garbage bags and they fill them to make
snowballs. Then we create our "Florida Snowman"! Here are a few that
we have made through the years. The best part is that they don't melt!
Audrey Wood is one of my favorite authors of children's books and I think that Silly Sally is one of the best. It is a perfect story for retelling and to do an innovation.
Several years ago, I saw a cute class book on Pinterest from Kindergarten Nana and another one from the prekinders blog. I decided to create something similar for my prekindergarten students. I loved how it turned out so much that I now do it every year! I typed up "Silly _______ went to town, walking backwards upside down" on the computer (double column for easier handling), then I cut and pasted clip art of the town in the background.
I have my kiddos use liquid watercolors for this project because the colors are so vibrant, but regular watercolor paint would work.
During letter Yy week earlier in the month, I took photos of the children with their arms out like the letter Y. I cut these out, glued them on their artwork, mounted it on cardstock and laminated it. Then I put it together to make a book. It is well worth the effort! This class book is always popular and the kids fight over their chance to read it. At the end of the year, I give each child their page to take home.
Here is a link to the Silly Sally class book from Kindergarten Nana. I love how she changes the verb in the text for each child!
https://dbsenk.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/silly-sally/
Here is another version http://www.prekinders.com/class-books/
(By the way, that blog is amazing! Lots of great ideas!!)
