Mini Preschool: Winter: Craft

Well, I think after a crazy and unruly December, that we are finally back in the swing of things, and I could not be happier. Sometimes you have to take a vacation from your mundane schedule to realize how much you love the stability of it. :) 

Today was another great day of Preschool at Cali's house. She got things off on the right foot right out of the shoot, by having the kids sing Once There Was a Snowman. (Seriously, is there a a child on this planet who isn't in love with that song?) The kids were all over it.  

The she read the kids the book The Mitten by Jan Brett, which is about a little boy who wants his grandmother to make him snow white mittens, but she's afraid that if they are the same color as the snow then her grandson will lose them. But she makes them for him anyway, and he does lose one. One by one some cold animals find the mitten and climb inside to keep warm. This stretches the mitten out so much the boy finds his mitten before returning inside.

After the story the kids got to color and make their own large mitten. Then they colored the animals and cut them out. After that, Cali read the story again and as she read each animal the kids put it inside the mitten. Very cute.

I always seem to be three hands short, on these kinds of activities, and so today for the first time, I let Lincoln do his own cutting out all by himself, so I could hold Adelia and help Ivan cut. Linc did great! I was really impressed. He didn't do perfectly, but when he finished most of his animals were all the way intact.

After the mitten activity, the Cali gave the boys little paper snow men on popsicle sticks. We sang a song about the snowmen, and the sun coming out, and the snowman turning into a puddle. When we got to the puddle part, Cali replaced their snowman with a picture of a puddle. It was a really cute song.

She did another song with them where they got to waddle like penguins. The kids went all around the room with their hands down at their sides, and only their hands flapping around. It made me laugh to watch them. I was surprised at how well they left their hands down at their sides though.

For the last activity, she gave each child a shishkabob stick and three large marshmallows and had the kids build a snowman with them. Then she used frosting to dot the eyes and buttons and the kids stuck mini M&Ms to them. Of course they ate them before we could bring them home to get a picture, but they were really cute.