Snow, snow and more snow! We played with "Shivery Snow" that didn't melt, no matter how much we played with it. (The recipe, should you want to make some, is 2 pounds of cornstarch to one can of shaving cream- mix well and place in the freezer overnight or until "shivery") We built snowmen and decorated them with hats, buttons and carrot noses. Some of us discovered what our foot and handprints looked like in our smoothed out snow. We made snowballs and caused the snow to fall gently and also made blizzards by throwing handfuls of snow down at a time. One friend said matter-of-factly as we were playing " Well, THIS is a fun day!" :) While we were playing, we used describing words to tell what the snow felt like and looked like. Words like "cold", "soft", "white" and more were spoken during this discussion. We're learning to use words to tell about our environment and things in it- an important skill!
Did you know that every snowflake is different when they freeze and fall except for that they all have 6 sides? This was one interesting fact that we learned this week about snow. Snow is water vapor that has formed a cloud and then frozen. We were all fascinated that snow is actually water! Snow also covers the ground during the winter in cold areas and helps to keep animals living underground warm when it's really cold out. Some friends acted this out by pretending their hands were these animals and burying them under our "Shivery Snow". Yay for applying learning in play!
Our letter of the week is Oo and we talked about how the 'ow' in snow says the long /o/ sound, one of the two sounds we learned that Oo makes. We brainstormed a dozen Oo words from oil and old to octagon and ostrich. Our Letter of the Week Wall is full! We used our "Shivery Snow" to practice writing our letter o's for some extra handwriting practice. 
Our word family was -ow, which makes the long /o/ sound. We segmented and blended words like low, sow, tow, mow and, of course, snow! Our word building skills are improving each week. Going along with that -ow word family, we sang the song "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and had some fun on the piano with it. We sang it in a super deep voice and pretended to be opera singers the next time through. We all had huge smiles on our faces as we played around with that familiar nursery rhyme/song. We continued practicing listening for the medial sound /o/ (short o sound) by creating and putting together an olive jar puzzle. Each olive in the jar had a word with the /o/ sound in the middle. There were olive puzzle pieces with the corresponding pictures on them that we had to match up to the words on the olives in the jar. This was tricky! We had to say the name of the picture and listen for the beginning sound, then look for that sound at the beginning of the words on the olives. Once we found the words that it could be based on the beginning sound, we had to sound the words out and figure out which one was the correct word to name the picture on the puzzle piece. We worked hard on our own and Ms. Marianne helped us to say each sound faster and faster together so we could hear the word they made together. :)
For math this week, we worked on number recognition, matching and correspondence by putting the correct number of buttons on a snowman and having some instruction in playing Go Fish. So fun! We all had a little trouble remembering to hold our cards close to our chest so no one else could see them... but we were nearly pros by the end of our 15 minutes of play. If we have extra time at the end of class in the future, we just might see this game again! 
Continuing with our Winter and Snow theme, we discussed what to wear should we encounter snow. Ms. Marianne had a basket for us to sort into "yes" and "no" piles for our trip to the cold. There were things like goggles, a ski jacket, flip flops, gloves, scarf and hat, a bathing suit and sunglasses. We had a great time trying them on and determining whether we needed them or not. 
Our highlight of the week was on Thursday- our official SNOW DAY! Since snow is kind of an abstract thing to us because of where we live, Ms. Marianne found a way to get some for us. She sent a special helper to get it from somewhere very cold and that helper brought back a large cooler full for us to experience. We used our 5 senses to make observations about the snow- what did it sound like? Look like? Feel like? Smell like (hahaha! See the picture for this one!) and What did it taste like? Once we'd used our powers of observation to learn about the snow, we got down to the business of enjoying it! We made and threw snowballs to our hearts' content... well, at least until the snow ran out. :) It seemed that Ms. Marianne was the target most of the time, but she wasn't afraid to grab a snowball and chase after us when we got her. What a great time we had! The comment was made by one student at the end of our play that they wished "we could live where the snow was everywhere instead of having it come in a box!" Well buddy, at least when it comes in a box we don't have to fight against it and shovel it every day! :) It was a blast to play in the snow and then warm up again quickly while still outside. 
Our last activity of the week was to create giant snowflakes. Ms. Marianne helped us to fold the tissue paper in the proper way and then guided us in cutting the triangle we started with in a way that would result in a neat design pattern in our snowflake. Then she let us cut our triangles. half circles and squares until we felt we had the design we wanted. The magic was in unfolding our paper and seeing the six sided masterpiece we'd created. Each one was different, just like we learned about in Science. The only similarity was that they were each hexagonal in shape. Seeing all the differences in our snowflakes was so neat! 
Next week, we'll be learning the letter Dd and the word family -it. Can you help me to find words this week that end in -it and help me to sound them out? It's a lot of fun to practice sounding out the names of things around me, and it prepares me for reading more and more!
Sight words will also be a big part of the next few months as we finish the alphabet and focus more and more on making words out of the letters that we've learned. Sight words help us to be more confident readers because when we come to them in a passage of text, we already know what they are and don't have to sound them out, making our reading more fluent. Hooray!
Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne
