Let it Snow! Books to share on a Snowy Day.

Let it Snow!

One of the reasons I live in the Arizona desert is the snow-free winters. I don’t hate snow, I just don’t want to live with it. But these snow-free winters mean a lot of our students have never seen snow and that’s a shame because the snow can be a lot of fun. 

So…. I use books to bring the fun of snow into the classroom without living in the cold and mess!  

Thomas’ Snowsuit by Robert Munsch, Very funny book about the difficulties of putting on a snowsuit.  (You can listen to the author the book aloud on his website!)

The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino and Jon Nelson, Ph.D. This link will take you to a free teacher's guide!

Snow by Cynthia Rylant,  a young girl enjoys a day in the snow. this link will take you to a brief activity guide for the book.

Snow Day by Lester Laminack, This delightful story puts a twist on "Snow Day." 

A Perfect Day by Carin Berger, This book paints a picture of a perfect day in the snow.

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert In this beautiful books students will enjoy the collages used to make the pictures.  The link goes lesson ideas for this book.

Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, A wonderful informational text about life over and under the snow. The link will take you to lesson ideas.

Blizzard by John Rocco This book is based on true experiences by the author.  The link will take you to a book trailer.  

The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg, After a day of playing in the snow a little girl discovers one of her mittens is missing!  Where could it be?  The link goes to a site with free lesson ideas.

Polar Bears by Gail Gibbons Another wonderful book filled with interesting facts about these giants of the north.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen  In this nighttime adventure a girl and her father go searching for owls on a moonlit winter night. The link takes you to lesson plan suggestions.

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Brigg,  (the link takes you to Snowflake Bentley's official website)  I saved my favorite book for last.  This beautiful book was introduced to me by a good friend who lives in Vermont.  One year she sent me the book along with a snowflake print from Bentley's collection as a Christmas gift.  I instantly fell in love with the book and used it in my classroom every year.  

You can download these free activities to go along with this very special book.

I hope you're having a wonderful winter with your students. Maybe a few of these books will find their way into your snowy lessons.

Snow Kids

Good morning everyone!  This month we are bringing you all kinds of wintry ideas!  Living in Arizona makes it a little difficult to understand and appreciate what a real winter is.  (But being from Canada, I know!)   Even so, we do lots of fun winter themed activities throughout the winter months. One of my all-time favorite winter activities is these Snow Kids!

I love incorporating art with writing.  Even more I LOVE incorporating student pictures into their work.  This activity has all three tied into one!  For this activity I read a few books about snowy days.  Especially since we live in Arizona I like to show videos about snowy days.  Last year I showed them a skiing video with an avalanche and they loved it!  I put it on my staff website and they kept watching it all throughout the year!  Together we brainstorm a list of activities that we would like to do on a snowy day.  Then I pass out the snow kids papers and have them write their own sentences. After they were finished writing and coloring I cut out the circles for their faces.  I tape their pictures behind and mount the finished product on blue paper.  Put them on display - they're sure to be a crowd pleaser!

Check them out here.

On a snowy day I like to drink hot chocolate and go ice skating!  Luckily I can still do both of those things while living in Arizona!  Better yet, I don't have to suffer through the cold to do it!  ;)

What's your favorite thing to do on a Snowy Day???  

A New Year's Goal Project

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are all enjoying your vacation. I certainly am, so much so that I forgot to come and share some thoughts with you yesterday. Ooops! My personal blog has also been neglected this last month due to fun and excitement that comes with this wonderful holiday season.I guess it is a good thing we are all getting set to make goals for the new year.

I always make personal goals for myself each year, but I also have my little firsties make goals as well. I have them write one goal and then they have to write one thing that will help them reach that goal. I want them to make the connection between setting a goal and making a change to reach that goal. We write these on a cute sheet of paper that goes along with a craft and we write them in our journals so that we can look back on them throughout the remainder of the year. The cute paper we use comes from a really simple craftivity from The Lesson Plan Diva. It is a really fun craftivity to do the first week back and it is always fun to see what they say. I have included some images from the file I use as well as a link to the packet on TpT. Have a wonderful rest of your vacation and enjoy your fist week back with your students!

My New Year's Resolution

SMART Goal Setting for the New Year

The new year is here!  It's the perfect time to help your kids set goals. I know we've all set New Year's Resolutions and they've probably lasted just a few days. That's probably because the resolution wasn't S.M.A.R.T. In order for goal setting to be effective you need to show your kids how to write S.M.A.R.T. goals. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Realistic and Timely.

As you have a discussion about S.M.A.R.T. goals, go over these questions.
Specific:  What exactly do you want to accomplish?

Measurable:  How will you know when you’ve reached this goal?

Action:  What will you need to do in order to reach your goal?

Realistic: Is this goal reachable? Can I really do this?

Timely:  When will you reach this goal?  What is your deadline? 

You can download these pages to help your students set up their S.M.A.R.T. goals for the new year.

Do you set New Year's goals or resolutions with your students? We'd love to see your ideas.  If you have a freebie or a blog post about setting goals with students please link up your ideas below.

An InLinkz Link-up

Polar Express Experience

Polar Express Day is a magical time for my second graders to feel the magic of the Christmas season.    I love celebrating our holiday party by using this favorite Christmas story that I remember reading with my Mom years ago.

I organize my day with everything Polar Express. The day begins with the students arriving and listening to me read aloud the story. They receive their ticket to board our classroom train and I punch it as they go to their desk that is arranged in a long rectangle like a train. We do a story graphic organizer for the book as a class and then begin watching the movie. I like stopping the movie at different points and doing an activity. That way it keeps the excitement going all day long. Below you will see my schedule for the day and activities I do. All the activities can be found in my All Aboard Polar Express pack found in my TPT Store. Merry Christmas and remember the bell rings for those that truly believe!

Gingerbread Fun!

There are so many great teaching themes to use during the month of December. One of my favorites to do every year is a gingerbread theme! There are some really wonderful read aloud books that can be used in a variety of ways in all subject areas.

One story I read to my students every year is Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. In this twist on the original tale, the gingerbread baby runs away and is lured back to the house when the boy who created him traps him by creating a gingerbread house.

For a fun activity, read the story to your students and, once the story ends, tell your students that you brought them some gingerbread cookies to eat. Then, grab a fancy Christmas bag, bring it over to your kids, and look inside. Newsflash: There's nothing inside! Then play it up BIG TIME: Looking inside the bag, looking confused, looking under your chair, around the classroom... and tell your students that, shockingly, the cookies are no longer in the bag! They always gasp and offer their suggestions on what happened to the gingerbread men. Of course, eventually, at least one student predicts that they must have run away! To relate it to the story, ask your students to recall how the boy got the gingerbread man to come back at the end of the book. The boy creates a fancy gingerbread house in order to entice the gingerbread cookie to come back; so your students will do the same thing to try and get their own cookies to return.

Give each student a gingerbread house traced onto construction paper with an open door cut into it. You can have them decorate it with any supplies you wish, but I usually take the quick route and just have them decorate it by coloring, cutting out, and gluing pictures of candy to the front of the house. I then glue it to a piece of red construction paper to add a little more stability.

I always plan this activity right before my students are about to leave the classroom, such as during specials or lunch time. This way, it gives me an opportunity to leave a gingerbread cookie on each of their houses when they least expect it!

Then your students will return to a surprise - a gingerbread man in the door! It always warms my heart when they come back in and exclaim, "It really worked!!!".

I also love to integrate the theme into our centers as well, such as with this Bakin' Up Sight Words activity from my Deck the Halls {Math and Literacy Centers} pack. Students choose a cookie and write the sight word on the matching space in the recording sheet.

A gingerbread theme is also a great little way to teach adjectives and descriptive writing. I picked up a foam sticker gingerbread decorating kit from Michael's (they have 24 to a pack!) that came with foam gingerbread men and all the components to decorate the front of it. Each student decorated their own.

Then, each student described their gingerbread man by creating a tree map to organize their thinking.

...Which they then used to write a story to describe their gingerbread creation. The tree map really helped them create coherent compound sentences and their writing turned out wonderful!

We always culminate our gingerbread unit with a big class gingerbread house building party. The day before the party, we have little elves (aka parent helpers) come in and build real houses out of graham crackers and royal icing. No milk cartons here! Then, the next day, each student gets to decorate their own gingerbread house. They absolutely love it!

What is your favorite gingerbread story to read during the month of December? Leave a comment telling us which one you love reading to your students and why!

Using STEM activites to encourage PROBLEM SOLVING!

Hello friends!  Heather here from Learning with Mrs. Langley and today is all about STEM in the classroom!

What is STEM?

The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  For me though the idea of STEM based lesson plans goes back to teaching across disciplines, integrating knowledge, and solving problems in a cooperative environment.  You know.....the way we were taught to teach! 

STEM based lesson plans and projects are inquiry based by nature.  Here are a few of the important skills students gain when exposed to inquiry in the early years. 

• asking questions
• explore materials, objects, and events and noticing what happens as changes are made
• using all the senses to explore
• making predictions
• recording observations
• working collaboratively

How do I start?

How do we integrate STEM activities in our classrooms?  Where do we start?  Here are a few tips to get you going in your room: 

1.  Starting a new unit in reading?  Here is an example of how I integrated a STEM activity with my Kindergarteners and the book Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman.  It is part of our reading series so I "have to" read it (although I love this one so I'm not complaining!).  We spent the week comparing make believe stories with real stories and read a lot of non fiction books about bears.  To keep the investigation going we had our STEM center set up with these materials:

Sounds dangerous right?  I think that only added to the excitement!  My favorite solution from one of my kiddos was pretty simple. He suggested we leave the parents behind because the kids are lighter and it would be easier to build a raft to float them.  I guess he showed me!  I feel a little bad for his parents though when it comes to survival! The materials I used were from Lakeshore.  I love their STEM kits! 

2. If we don't have a reading book to go along with the center I simply call this our "Problem Solving" station.  It's a class favorite!  We have experimented with magnets, ramps, and things that roll so far.  To integrate Math and Technology we incorporate some of our apps on the iPads to our problem solving station but I have to admit, that's been the hardest part of STEM for me to include so far.

3. Rethink your favorite units!  Instead of a Halloween party or Halloween centers this year I went with an "All About Pumpkins" unit instead.  The kiddos loved experimenting, making predictions, and measuring our pumpkins.  In years past we would have made jack-o-lanterns, instead this year we cleaned out the pumpkins, dried out the seeds, and counted/compared the numbers of seeds to the size of the pumpkin.  It was so much fun! 

 So that's how I integrate STEM into our daily kindergarten routine.  How do you incorporate science, technology, engineering, and math into your science lessons?  I'd love to hear in the comments below!

Thanks for stopping by Hello Sunshine today!