Seasons! Week 5- Letter E

Hello!  So week 5 was busy.  The first of our unit on Seasons I got to do WINTER.  This was great for me as there are some wonderful BOOKS that have winter themes that lent themselves to some fun interactive activities.

Gathering Time: went really well, puzzles, coloring and other hands on things had everyone really engaged and happy so I let this go a little longer because we can be that flexible.  I find you'll often know when "it's time" to move on.

When we did it was time for the jobs and the "letter of the day".  Here is 2 ways we incorporated it:

And we tried to play "hot and cold" with the hidden E item, that didn't go over so well but it was fun to try.

Then we did an observation about ice.  I froze some polar bears in a block of ice and we would keep coming back to observe what happened to water as it melted.

Then we read our first BOOK: "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats.

We read the book once through.  Then I handed out shapes on Popsicle sticks and we went page by page of the book each child looking for their shapes.  That went really really well!

Then we talked about how Peter in the book would have to be dressed to go out into the snow....

Then we tried to do a cut and paste activity where they matched clothing with the right season.  This was above most of them and it didn't go as well as I'd hoped.  Oh well, onto the next book.

The Mitten by Jan Brett.

I had made a large mitten out of construction paper first and then I had baggies for each of them with each of the animals we'd meet in the book and as I read the book each boy could find their animal and put it into the mitten.  This really kept their attention and was a great way to read this book.

I had more activities to do with this book but at this point they just wanted to play and so we did for about 30 minutes.

Then to calm them down we read another book with no words called "The Snowman" by Raymond Briggs.  This is an absolute favorite of my kids, it tells a story about a boy who builds a snowman and it comes to life and they have a great adventure together one night.....

Then we ate lunch and as we ate I had found a cute book about Penguins that was a book on CD and I had it on and flipped the pages while they ate.

I really had more activities and this time it went much faster than last time!