Week in Review: Snow

Contrary to what this seems we didn't intentionally study the letter Ss this week, it just kind of got thrown into the mix while we were talking about snow and snowmen. We had a whole lot of fun this last week and I will just jump right in and show you what we did.

I was quite fond of this little snowman that Annabelle drew. I think it turned out really cute. Plus, this is the first structured drawing that she has been required to do. I told her what she needed to draw and this is how it turned out. I think that she enjoyed it.

Here she is working hard on her color by shape page from here: http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/WinterFunTotPack.html

We did lots and lots and LOTS of counting this last week. I tried seemingly in vain to introduce her to the numbers 11-15. She counts really well up to 12, but I guess that thirteen and fourteen sound the same to her because only one of those numbers come out before fifteen. It has been consistently like this all week. Slightly irritating to the teacher unfortunately. Guess we'll have more counting activities in the upcoming weeks. At least she enjoyed herself (which is much more than I can say about me....I detest math). These counting activities can be found here: http://thoughtsofesme.blogspot.com/2010/12/winter-unit.html

This one was fun for Annabelle, she really, really, really liked counting with the marshmallows.

How many children are building this snowman? Way too many. This was the least favorite of the counting activities that we did, partly because my daughter has OCD tendencies and wanted her kids in a certain order/pattern, and wanted all the girls first and would then lose count of how many kids she had already counted. But mostly because mommy made it way too stressful, and instead of just going with the flow kind of freaked out on her sweet, precious daughter, therefore rendering said activity un-fun. Lesson learned during this activity: When the teacher feels frustrated, everyone gets frustrated (and slightly hysterical with crying involved). Best solution in this case, take a break or move on, don't try to complete the activity. Lesson learned (hanging head).
More counting. We did much better this day. Annabelle really enjoyed counting the star buttons on these cute little snowmen. It was much easier for her to focus on finding the corresponding number on the hat than to count out 15 children building a snowman and not lose focus.

Working on gluing something. I just wanted everyone to note that she insisted that she dressed fancy this day for some reason.....

.....probably because in her spare time she has been caught looking at this. Fancy Nancy. :)

I have seen this idea done on so many mommy blogs that I read that I just couldn't resist trying it any longer. I really don't like to go outside in the snow....I know, I know...I'm just not a cool mom like that. The thought of bundling the kids up (which takes 30 min.) just to go outside for 5 min. to come inside and get them undressed, hot chocolate made, everything dried, and put away.....well, it just doesn't appeal to me that much. So I brought some snow inside, into the kitchen sink. I really liked this alternative and the kids did too! I put towels down on the floor, mittens on their hands and let them go wild. It entertained them for easily 45 min.

The next couple pictures are finished art projects.

Pretty Snowballs. The reason why I didn't get any pictures of the process you ask? This was a very messy craft. Rolling a balloon around in glue is just as messy as it sounds (who would've thought it), add glitter on top of that and well you have a recipe for a big giant sticky, sparkly mess!

Paper plate snowmen. Much less messy and just as fun for the kids (even more so because they were able to do more by themselves).

Our final snowman craft was fun and turned out pretty cute I think. They're called melted snowmen. Big blob of glue on wax paper, and the kiddos added the 'fixins'

Love his 'smile' face. :)

The finished melted snowman. I don't know why, but I think that they are cute. (These took 2 whole days to dry!)

The reason why the snow theme is so much fun is that there is so much out there for preschoolers and toddlers to enjoy. Asa had a lot of fun this week with all the activities that he was able to do while his sister was doing her school. These activities that you see in the next couple pictures are from here: http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/WinterFunTotPack.html

He matched these snowflakes several times throughout the week. He really liked doing this.

He discovered these tools that we've had forever this week. He played with these every single day and is still going with them. He walks around the house fixing things. It is really quite cute. Here is fixing the dining room chair. Never mind that his tool box is a pink and purple Disney princess backpack. :) lol

Sorting the letter s from other letters. This activity can be found in the same winter tot pack that I linked to earlier from Annabelle's counting activities. This proved to be a little more difficult for Asa. He is used to sorting uppercase and lowercase of the same letter. Never sorting one letter from a whole bunch of different letters. I think that this new concept just caught him off guard and it took him a couple times to get used to something different than what he was used to.

Asa loves two or three piece puzzles and I love Craigslist (which is where I bought a whole case of two piece mommy/baby puzzles for 5 dollars).

This is another activity from the 1+1+1=1 link. I wanted to make this a little more of an independent activity for Asa. What I did was print out two copies of the buttons and glued one set to some card stock mailing labels that I have laying around (index cards would work well too). Then I wrote the numbers 1-5 on each shape set. Asa would draw a card and it would have a 2 then one of the heart shapes glued on it, so he would know that he needed to put 2 heart buttons on the snowman. Sorry, if that is a complicated explanation. I thought I took a picture of it. Maybe I'll do a quick post tomorrow showing just that.

The kids have been having a lot of fun with their dot markers that they got in their stockings. Here are a couple of Asa's masterpieces from this last week. I think that they are cheerful and fun. They make me smile. :)

No pics of the little guy again this week. We have been doing tot school with him, I'm just not capturing it on camera. Silas did take a stab at dot art this week though. He really enjoyed it. He likes feeling like he's part of the things his brother and sister get to do.

Well, that's it for this last week. I was fighting a nasty cold this last week and unfortunately all three of my kids have come down with the same thing. Say some prayers for good health to return to us. I'll leave you with a picture of my three beautiful sickies relaxing and watching some Super Why (thank you Netflix for finally getting something PBS related that isn't Barney...no offense).

To see what other people have been up to this week stop by these sites that I'm linking up to....at least I hope I am....this is my first time trying this and I'm not too technically savvy, so I hope it works! :)