Wonderful Winter Work

It's been a couple months since I last posted on my blog.  I've just been really busy and every time I think I may have some time to work on a post, I realize that I've forgotten to take pictures of the new works at my preschool.  And it just turned into a revolving cycle...

Well, today was the day I finally remembered to take some pictures of the new work we've been doing in our classroom the last couple weeks since winter break ended!  So, here goes!

Our themes for the last couple weeks have revolved around winter.  Last week the theme was just "winter" and this week the theme was "animals in winter."  We learned about the changes that occur during the months of winter and about the different ways animals respond to the winter months in Michigan -- hibernation, migration, and adaptation.

Below are some of the Practical Life works we've been doing over the last couple weeks:

Spooning styrofoam snowballs.  The styrofoam snowballs are from the clearance section at Michael's.

Pouring Water -- pitcher to pitcher.  This is our first wet pouring work.  We were focusing on dry pouring previously.

Snowflake lacing from childcareland.com in the free printables section.

Styrofoam snowball pouring.

Glove matching with clothespins.  This turned out to be more difficult for the kids than I thought it would be.  But, there has been a lot of interest in it.

Open & close basket.

Here are some Sensorial works from the last couple weeks:

These are listening cylinders that I made out of some old film canisters.  These have been out for a while, but since I haven't posted in a while I thought I'd add these in as well.

These are the listening cylinders again -- showing the bottoms.  I have them color-coded so that the kids can check their work.

These are my handmade touch tablets made from plaque boards from Michael's and several grades of sandpaper that I purchased at Hoe Depot.  The blindfold on the right side is from Kid Advance Montessori.  These have been out for a while as well.

This is visual discrimination snowflake matching from Making Learning Fun.

I took this picture to show the knobbles cylinder extension cards from Montessori Print Shop.  These have also been out for a while.

We've been adding drawers to the geometric cabinet.  The kids are really interested in the different names some of the shapes have!

This is a "build a snowman" work that I actually found in the members area of Kids Soup.  The child chooses a snowman card from the small bin at the top of the tray and then uses the different parts of the snowman in the tray below to recreate the same snowman.  Or, they can create their own snowman!

This is button sorting/matching from Making Learning Fun.  The child must match three of the exact same button on the snowman card.  There are enough cards for each set of three buttons in the bowl. 

Here are some of the Math works from the last couple weeks:

These are snowman cards & button counters.  The cards are from the free printables are of childcareland.com.

This is a snowflake patterning work. The child extends the patterns by adding snowflakes from the bowl.  I added sticky-backed magnet tape to the back of each snowflake and put the work on a metal tray so that the cards would not move around as easily once the child placed them in the correct space. I feel badly that I cannot remember where I found this work!  If you know where it is from, please post to my blog so that I can give credit to the person who made it!

This is a collecting snowflakes game from Making Learning Fun.

Sorting snowballs by size -- with the styrofoam snowballs.

These are snowflake count and clip cards from Making Learning Fun.

Here is a work that I added to the shelf that I use interchangeably for science and puzzles, depending on what we are working on at the time:

This is an "Animals in Winter" book and matching puzzle cards from the members area of www.kidssoup.com.  The child can use the book to help him/her match the animal picture cards with what that animal does in the winter.

Here are some pictures of the way our shelves are set up in the classroom right now:

Practical Life

Math

Math

Puzzles & Science

Writing

Language

Sensorial

Art

Each school day I also have one project out at a table that each of the children must complete.  The last couple weeks we have done the following projects:

* snowperson craft using pre-cut paper snowballs, buttons, yarn pieces, cotton balls, markers, crayons, and glue
* yarn & glue snowflakes - this requires dipping white yarn into a mixture of glue and water and then laying the yarn in a criss-cross manner on top of wax paper until it dries.  I did not have much luck with this project once it dried to the wax paper.  When I tried to pull the snowflakes off, they came apart...
* winter clothing magazine picture collage
* hibernating bear craft - I adapted this craft from an idea I found at http://amy-fun4kids.blogspot.com/2009/01/animals-in-winter-hybernation-penguins.html
* migrating bird craft - using a bird pattern (I can't remember where I found the pattern), buttons (for eye), paper triangles (for beak), and fake feathers
* cheerios & pipe cleaner bird feeders -- string cheerios on a pipe cleaner, attach into a circle, and hang on a tree
* pine cone bird feeder -- using pine cones with yarn tied to the top for hanging, shortening mixed with cornmeal (instead of the traditional peanut butter, since my classroom is peanut-free), and bird seed

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now: