Like most moms (I think), I consider the engaged time vs. prep/clean up time ratio when deciding on an activity. I try not to choose activities that require me to set up or clean up for longer than the kids are actually busy with it. These activities are a little messy but have a pretty good return on investment, especially if you get the kids to help you with clean up.
First, we read a
A Silly Snowy Day
. Shelley the Tortoise is not interested in hibernating for the winter. Instead, she decides to see what winter is like and encounters a variety of animals who all tell her that a tortoise in winter is ridiculous. She doesn't have the skills to cope with it like they do. Feeling very discouraged, she doesn't pay attention and slips on some ice and slides down a hill right back toward her home, where she feels grateful to be back.
After the story we glued "snow" (coarse salt) onto a letter S. I traced on outline of an S onto colored construction paper.
Then Drew made an S by staying in the lines with the glue:
Finally, he sprinkled salt over the glue:
Drew liked this so much we did it over and over and over...
 |
| Had to do a few "D"s too |
To go with our S theme, we also had to play with snow. Surprisingly, snow is in short supply this year, so we were inspired by the activities at
Crayon Freckles and
Interactive Mamas. I took out some cookie sheets, some play doh tools, and some toy cars. We squirted the shaving cream (or shower cream as Drew insists on calling it) on the cookie sheets and they went to town. We pretended it was snow. We also made some S's in the shaving cream.
Afterwards, I let Drew use the spray nozzle to wash the shaving cream off the toys. He LOVES the spray nozzle. Yes, I had to wipe up a lot of water but it kept him busy for another ten minutes. It took me two minutes to wipe up. I'll let you do the math. :)
the shaving cream is a great idea, what kid wouldn't love that?
ReplyDeleteLove it! What fun!
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas, shaving cream is a favorite in my classroom. It is even useful for cleaning the super hard plastic that most school-type kid chairs are made out of. My students get to clean their cube chairs twice a year with it and it is a major event.
ReplyDeletehow fun!! learning this way is the BEST!
ReplyDeleteWonderful hands-on ideas! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is a lot of salt S letters! And some O's as well. Are you spelling SOS for a reason?
ReplyDeleteLots of very perfect and fun Ss!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
You guys had lots of fun with your S theme. Great ideas!
ReplyDeletenice post
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looks like they had fun! we'll have to try the tracing the letters with glue thing. Bear loooooooves glue!
ReplyDeleteThe cars in shaving cream look like such fun!
ReplyDeleteI would love for you to link this to Read.Explore.Learn.
SO true about the time ratio! I have seen some awesome looking activities on blogs/pinterest and decided against them because the time of set up/clean up would be too much!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, AWESOME letter activity. I also love checking out the books you guys are reading for some inspiration! Thanks for linking up with Thrifty Thursday this week! Have a great weekend!
Love this post - we have been focussing on letter 's' activities this week too! I added some food colouring to the shaving foam and we used it to 'paint' in the bath - lots of fun and you just spray the tiles clean after!
ReplyDelete