Winter and Penguin Activities

If you cant beat'em join'em as the saying goes right! We are embracing this VERY snowy winter and put together some fun winter activities! (we just got another foot of snow last night!)

 I made a winter wonderland! I layed out white batting that I had on the floor for snow/ice. I put out a basket labeled winter clothes for dress-up, made an ice fishing kit: small white bucket, ice holes cut out of felt, rods made from wooden spoons and ribbon, and some golden felt fish to catch.  In the bucket I put a blue play silk for water to keep their fish in that they catch. I also made snow balls with white nylons and batting, this made for some fun snow ball fights inthe house!

 We colored ice and froze it so we could watch the colors melt together.... this was not as fun as we thought it was going to be and they lost interest in it pretty quick, and it turned their hands black with food coloring! My friend Janelle suggested using the colored ice to paint with and it will look like water colors!

 I put this box together for the pin punching.

 During a swap I received this wonderful cork board from Honey, for some reason Mason thought it would look good if he decorated it? Oh well...in the box is the cork board, paper, shapes for tracing and a test tube with a pencil and a push pin in it.

 Lots of penguin books from the library, some penguins and a wooded egg for practicing holding the egg on their feet like a daddy penguin.

 I found this activities on one of these great blogs, but can not find it now..the activity is to paint a tree then use "snow paint" to add snow to the trees. To make snow paint you need, white paint, white glue and shaving cream.
I found it I got it from fairydustteaching.blogspot.com

Snow dough:

2c flour

2c water

1/3 c salt

2Tbls olive oil

2 Tbls cream of tartar

glitter

cook in pot over med/high heat , KEEP STIRRING until done

make balls and put glitter inside, as the children play with them the glitter comes out!

insta snow this stuff is so cool and it feels like real snow! We added some penguins and fake ice to the bin.

 Another swap item from honey was this diagram of the life cycle of a penguin, also in this tray are animal research cards I got from http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/assets/PDF/Introductory_Animal_Research.pdf free download.

 Penguin color hat matching

 Honey again gave these ice crystals and wooden penguin, James enjoys using the tongs and putting them into the ice cube tray and making patterns.

 These are glass pieces (used for a fish tank) that work great as ice for counting and playing

 I made this tray: blue felt on the bottom, white felt from ice burgs, glass ice, Toob animals, penguins, polar bear, moose, dear, white wolf, seal and fish.

Lots of winter, snow books, The Snowy Day is a great book. 

That adorable polar bear was made by Honey at http://mondorfment.blogspot.com/