Shape Snowmen

We have been doing a shape unit for the past few weeks. I find shapes to be a lot of fun to teach. They lend themselves well to exploration and crafts. One of my favorite crafts from this unit came to me as I was diecutting shapes for the students to use for our writing center (where they were creating pictures out of shapes and writing about them).

I was standing there diecutting the shapes and wondering what else we could do with these shapes as I realized how many I had cut out. (Apparently I was on a roll!) I thought about the cold weather and the days out that we'd had and it came to me! We could make snowmen.

I hurried back to my classroom, whipped up a quick circle template for my firsties to trace. (Most things we do freehand for the originality it sparks but I felt a lesson on shapes deserved actual circles to trace.) Then, I put together a quick little recording sheet for them to fill in after making the craft. These little guys turned out way cuter than I could have imagined!

We had lots of fun with 3D shapes today! I'll share some of our adventures with those later this weekend!

Whoa Weather!

So, I originally had planned to blog about the 100th day of school and some of the fun that we had. Overall, the 100th day made this a good Monday.  However, there's much more interesting news for this week. The excitement of the 100th day of school is kind of being overshadowed by the weather. Yes, the weather.

I live in a state that rarely gets snow. We often don't even see the really cold temperatures. (Though, we've had our fair share this year.) That's why it's such a surprise that we have snow in our future. The next two days hold possible wintry mix and snow. What's more surprising is that it was 68 degrees today and will be in the low 30s for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Everyone is preparing and the schools are operating on half-day dismissal tomorrow. This may sound silly to some of you northerners, but us southerners are just not equipped to handle the snow and cold. (Give us the blistering heat though and we know what to do with it!) I have had the opportunity of seeing snow already this winter when I traveled to Arkansas to spend time with my boyfriend's family for the holidays. It was a much different experience.

It also made me realize some of the differences between a place that normally experiences snow and a place that sees it every ten years or so. Arkansas had things in place to clear the roads and people (for the most part) knew how to drive in the icy conditions. Switch over to South Carolina and we don't stockpile road-clearing goodies. Nor do we know how to drive on icy roads. We rarely have to. Hence, the massive closings and early dismissals taking place throughout the state.

It's sure to be an interesting week with lots of opportunity to create TPT products! Among these products will be the February Work Journal. Check out the January Work Journal to get a glimpse of what's to come. February will have a similar set up!

Arkansas