K is for King

We made Winter King crowns using jewels and snowflakes to go with our book, Winter King, Summer Queen. 

Pin the Nose on Olaf

 I don't know about you, but the Frozen sensation has hit our house hard. My kids love listening to the songs. I know a few choice barbies that are going to find their way under the tree this Christmas. Anna and Elsa are great but, Olaf has stolen our hearts this season. 

   I am helping at my daughter's kindergarten class party this week. We decided we are going to play pin the nose on the snowman and then inspiration struck!! I know a snowman who is always loosing his nose and other body parts. Enter the game: pin the nose on Olaf!

 Isn't he adorable! I don't know who's more excited, my kindergartner or me, but I love how he turned out. Nothing like google images, butcher paper, and a good movie to watch. This little guy is about 4 feet tall. 

Here is a pdf with Olaf noses on it for the game. Each child is going to color and cut one out before we play the game. 

Shape Snowman and 3-D Snow Paint

 We practiced our shape names and used those shapes to make a snowman. Then we used some "snow" paint to give our picture a 3-D effect. 

Creating the snowman is pretty self explanatory  - shapes (3 circles, 4 ovals, triangle, square, rectangle, & scarf shape), buttons, googly eyes. 

To make the 3-D "snow" paint, mix equal parts of shaving cream and white glue. We used cotton balls to apply it so it was kind of bumpy, you can also use a paintbrush

I'm Stuck in a Snow Globe!

 I have been wanting to try homemade snow globes since last year's winter theme. So, of course I had to sneak them in this year. The great thing about these is that you can really put anything you want into them. You could do pictures or make your own winter scene. Anything that is small enough to fit and is water resistant, is fair game.  I was actually thinking these might have made fun parent's gifts for Christmas. They were a huge hit with the parents and kids alike.

After doing the project with my big class and my little class, I have to say that this is definitely a small group kind of thing. They turned out adorable and I really loved them, but you use a hot glue gun and a laminator so there was a lot of adult work needed to get these bad boys done. 

We used mason jars to give it more of a clean look, but you could use old glass jars from food or other items. You are also supposed to use glycerin to help the "snow" fall more slowly.You can usually find it in the baking isle or the first aid isle in your grocery store. I'm not sure that it makes a huge difference, but we used it anyway.

We started by making paper dolls like the project we did last year found here. It would also be cute to just take pictures of the kids dressed up in winter gear. I wasn't able to do this because I only have little girls, so all our winter gear is purple and pink. I didn't think the boys would appreciate that too much. : ) Then  laminate the dolls. I used one of these super handy home laminators. I got it on an online black Friday sale and I love it! It is so handy to have and I use it all the time. It is made by Scotch and you can find it all over the place - Walmart, Target, Staples, etc.

 

You have to make sure that the seal on the pictures is completely tight (we learned that the hard way on the first day we made them). So, I actually sent this project through the laminator twice. After laminated, cut out your pictures. Leave a good margin of plastic around the edge to help keep the seal.

Then, use a hot glue to glue a layer of cotton balls on the top of the lid and glue the dolls down sandwiched between the cotton balls.

Fill your mason jar with water and add some glycerin and glitter. We used about a tablespoon of glycerin per jar. We just sprinkled glitter on the top of the water until there was a nice layer of it. Sorry, to be so vague. 

Then slowly submerge your dolls into the water. The cotton will soak up a lot of the water, so you will have to add more. It helps to do this part of the project over a towel because there is a good chance of over flowing. Make sure that nothing gets in between the seal on the lid and the jar. If you don't, the jar will leak. There you have it! 

If you wanted, you could spray paint the lid or add a cute ribbon to the bottom.

Here's What You Need:

• mason jars or other glass jars
• cotton balls
• glitter
• water
• glycerin
• paper dolls or toys to put into the globe
• hot glue gun

Here's What You Do:

1. Make your paper dolls, laminate them, and cut them out leaving a small edge of plastic to keep in the seal.
2. Hot glue cotton balls and your paper dolls to the lid of the jar.
3. Add water, glitter, and glycerin to the jar.
4. Turn dolls upside down and lower them into the jar. (It helps to do this part over a towel or the sink.) Add more water if needed.
5. Seal the lid and enjoy!
6. If wanted, hot glue a ribbon around the lid.

Edible Igloos

Last year we made igloos using sugar cubes. You can see the post and directions here. They were pretty cool, but I decided to change it up a little bit this year and make igloos we could eat. This worked out so well and it was so easy for the kids.

Normally, we have a pretty healthy snack every day, but I can safely say that this snack was as far away from healthy as you can get. Mini cakes covered in icing covered in marshmallows. Can we say sugar anyone? To try to offset the insane amount of sweets, we had an extra long recess after this fun project. 

I started by baking cake mix into small glass bowls. I didn't use cupcakes because I wanted them to be a little bit bigger. I had the students work in pairs to make their igloo and we needed a little more room to work. You could easily use cupcakes and have the kids work individually. (These bowls held about a cup of batter.)

After I baked each one, I leveled the top with a knife and then flipped the cupcake upside down onto the plate to get a tapered look. 

To frost the cupcakes, I sniped a very small corner off of a sandwich baggie. You need to make sure to use the press to close kind and not the fold over because you don't want any extra folds at the bottom. I filled the baggies with icing and tied it with a rubber-band. The rubber-band prevents the icing from going up into the top of the bag when you squeeze it. This ended up being very helpful for the little ones. 

In class, the kids frosted and covered their mini cakes with marshmallows.They added a 2 X 4 tunnel for the door.

Then we cut it in half and ate it! It was a very successful and very yummy project.

As a side note, we read an awesome Goldilocks story to go with this project. The bears are polar bears who live in an igloo. The pictures are beautiful and the story is a fun twist to the traditional fairy tale. It is titled The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett.

H is for hat!

We had hat day at school last week. We wore our favorite hat to school

and made a hat pictograph. Each hat picture was colored in a special way to say something about that person. 

 

The kids followed the directions and we hung our completed pictures up on the wall. 

Here's the hat that I drew for the project.

S is for . . .

. . . silly scissors!
Here's Trevor making a silly face while using our silly scissors.

. . . snow! I was so excited to find a snow machine that was in perfect condition at a garage sale this year. I wanted to do this last year, but couldn't. We read the book Clementine's Wardrobe by Kate Spohn

and talked about what kinds of clothes we wear in the snow.

Then we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

and made our own snow.
 

. . . skipping. We read the book Ready, Set, Skip by Jane O'Connor

about a little girl who can do lots of things, but she just can't skip. Then we learned how to skip using a step, hop pattern.