There’s SNOW Time Like Winter!

Just stopping in for a quick minute tonight to share a few things that have been keeping us busy this week.

Write the Room has been keeping us up on our feet and moving around.   This is my kids’ absolute FAVORITE activity so it’s no surprise that I have to change these out quite frequently.  These last couple of days my kids have been identifying word families and writing CVC words {from my January Write the Room packet}. 

 

In our sight word center, the kids have been digging through the snow to find words. 

Once they find a word they know, they count out the number of letters in the word and use the paper snowballs in the bucket to spell it out and glue it in the box.  After they spell it out, they write the word.    

This has quickly become a class favorite.  Looks like I’ll be keeping this center out for a little while longer!  You can download a free copy of this little activity by clicking on the picture below.

We did this little Snowmen at Night writing activity last year and the year before that.  This is one of those writing craftivities I haven’t tired of yet.  I love their sweet responses and adore how different and unique each little snowman turns out.  This little craftivity is not my original idea.  You can find the original HERE at The Elementary Art Room.

  

I absolutely ADORED this little math craftivity from Julie at Mrs. Lee’s Kindergarten.  My kids had a BLAST making them and creating their own patterns.  We used little button die cuts.  This was the perfect activity as a spiral review for our first week back from break.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen this little picture of the game we played earlier today.

I love getting a new family of kids every year.  It challenges me to come up with fun & engaging activities to meet the needs of ALL learners.  I feel like I’m never doing the exact same things from year to year because no two class is ever the same and each class has such a different set of needs.  So it only stands to reason that we have to create/modify/adapt lessons/activities to fit the needs of the kids we have in the present. 

This week we’ve used our little Race to the Snowman game for both math and literacy.  I used these great little snowflake ornaments {I bought last year after Christmas for about 10cents a piece!} as game pieces. 

For one of our literacy activities, I divided the class into two groups.  We had an odd number of kids in the class that day so I voluntold one of the kids to be the game master and move the game pieces to race to the snowman.  I used one of my handheld white boards and paired kids up from both teams.  I wrote a sight word on the board, turned it around and showed it to the pair, and the first person to say the word correctly earned their team a snowflake on the “game board”.  The first team to make it all the way to the snowman first, wins.  They couldn’t get enough!!!

For math, we practiced one more/one less.  Again, I divided the class into two groups.  I randomly gave each kiddo in both groups a number card.  Since there were 9 kids in both groups, I only set out 9 snowballs {game board spots} out for both groups.  I had a separate stack of number cards to call from that I was holding.   Each kiddo also got a snowflake to use to cover up a spot on the game board. 

From the stack of number cards I was holding, I called out a number and said “one more/one less” before each number I called.  For example, if I pulled out the number 7, I would say “ONE MORE THAN 7” and then the person holding the number 8 would use their snowflake to cover up a game spot on their team’s game path.  Whichever team reached the snowman first, won.

Another winner, winner chicken dinner.

What I love about a “race to whatever” game is that you can use it with ANY skill.  These are just a couple of ways we used it this week!! 

Now it’s time to catch up on the zombie apocalypse.  We are on the 3rd season of The Walking Dead and I’m completely HOOKED!!!!  I also have this completely irrational fear of zombies at the moment.  FREAKY.  But darn if I don’t love this show!!!

TGIF!!!!!