2's: Snowball Fight

The 2's wanted in on the action with the snowball fights too.  Some weren't really sure what to make out of the indoor winter fun but they caught on pretty fast!

3's/4's Beach Day

What better time to explore the beach than in the middle of winter.  It seems our annual beach day event lands on the coldest of winter days every year and this year was no exception.  Despite the freezing cold, our classroom was full of "summery" beach activities.

The 3's enjoyed eating snack, playing beach ball and exploring the water and some shells  "at the beach."
 

The 4's also enjoyed their fair share of beach ball, getting squirted with water guns and exploring the water and sand in their bathing suits in the middle of winter in the classroom!

There have been a lot of reports of shark sightings off our coast in the last few years.  We checked our waters and thought they were safe ...

I can tell you their methods must work because everyone made it out without a scratch!


Well, almost ... we are still looking for Pastor Hank.

Even our snowman door greeter found his swim trunks and was prepared for beach day!

Beach Day is a great escape for us when the winter days seem so long.  What do you do to help through some of those long days?

4's: Exploring Winter

Ideally, it's nice to have some real snow when exploring winter but sometimes that's just not possible.  So we created our own kind of winter fun.

A plastic bag was filled with lard and placed on one hand.  The other hand was left unprotected and both hands were placed in a bowl of ice water.  It didn't take long to figure out how helpful lard is in keeping the hand warm and also helped us understand how arctic animals are protected in harsh winter conditions.

Then we were ready for some fun and games beginning with a game of snowball toss,

and ending with a loud and serious indoor snowball fight!

Thankfully these snowballs were VERY soft!

Stone Soup ... a great way to warm up after winter exploration!  Adding the ingredients,

taste testing - a thumbs up, and a stone!

YUM!!

2's: Fun With Blue!

There is so much fun to be had with the color blue.  The water table seemed so much more fun when the water was blue! 

Truly, any color glitter is great but today we were excited about the blue glitter.

Our fine motor skills are progressing nicely.  Look at the pencil grasp!

4's: Building a Snowman

We tried a new recipe this year to make snowmen and really enjoyed the process.  Though the smell could be a little overpowering, we had a good time making snowmen using soap!

First, we put the soap in a bowl and place it in the microwave.  We weren't really prepared for what they said would happen - what a fun and interesting surprise!

The soap expanded and cooled quickly.

It was an interesting sensory experience to break up the soap into small pieces.

After adding a few other ingredients, we made our snowmen!

Next time maybe we will have enough real snow to make real snowmen!

4's: Winter Manipulatives

We have really enjoyed the winter theme and correlating things associated with winter into our daily activities.  Marshmallows were used as snowballs so often that when a bag was opened recently they cheered, "Look, more snowballs!"  I'm sure their excitement had something to do with SNACKING on the snowballs, I mean marshmallows but they sure did seem to enjoy our center time activities.  Something about counting with marshmallows that makes it fun!

Games with dice also provide a lot of fun.  We took turns rolling the dice, counting the dots, finding the corresponding number and picture cards.

It's okay with us if winter continues for another six weeks - as long as we have a supply of marshmallows!

3's: Jumping Over the Candlestick

Jack wasn't the only one jumping over the candlestick in the 3's room and what form they displayed as they took their turn jumping.

Preparing to jump.

 

The high jumpers,,

 

the long jump,

And those that hurdled the candlestick.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, how would you jump over the candlestick?