Our Wonders About Snow

I can't believe how fast the first couple of weeks in January went by!  The students came back after the Winter Break refreshed and energized (so did I!).  But the weather was so COLD!

We experienced indoor recess nearly every day for 2 weeks!

This sparked the students to wonder why snow falls, what snow is made of, why the weather can be so cold and many more questions!  We wrote them on a chart so that we could research together.

I decided the next day to put some small trinkets into the ice cube trays before freezing them.  The students loved watching the ice melt throughout the day and even tried to find ways to make it melt faster to see what was inside!

S.Q.:  If you hold the ice cube in your hand, it will melt faster because your hand is hot.

My E.A. (Mrs. Chiovitti) and I wanted to show the children how quickly hot water freezes in below zero temperature so on the coldest day (it was about -30 Celcius with the windshield) the two of us went outside while Mrs. Petrone (my DECE) stayed inside our warm classroom and documented student learning.

Please excuse the quality of this photo.  Our windows have protective screens and this was the best picture we could get!  This demonstration was much better live!

The students couldn't believe how quickly the boiling water, when thrown into the air, turned to a white powder.

So since the students couldn't go outside to play with the snow, we decided to bring the snow inside!

It was cold!!!

So many decided to play with it using their mittens.

We saw a bird out our Wonder Window and some of the students were wondering why the bird "didn't fly south". 

(I wish I had taken a picture in time!)

After discussing a new word, "migrate", we read a story a student brought to school, Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams and Jean Stoick.

It's a beautiful story about a snowman alone in the woods with various pieces of food on him.  Animals wonder who he could be and where he came from.

I love all of the amazing photos!

The children quickly saw a connection between the bird out our window and a cardinal in the story.  They wanted to research more about birds that migrate and winter animals.

My colleague, Ms. Cerbino, showed me a provocation she left for her students all about arctic animals and sugar cubes, so I decided to do the same.

The students have been using the plastic animals to role play and build interesting structures using the sugar cubes.

A few boys decided to take pictures of each animal and compile them into a book about arctic animals.

Some girls even put on a play using the pieces!

Of course my Senior Kindergarten students remembered the poem "The Five Little Snowmen" that we acted out numerous times last year so we had to show our Junior Kindergarten friends one of our favourite poems.

You can download the poem and hat props for free by clicking here.

For the past few days, Mrs. Petrone noticed that the students have taken an interest in snowflakes, drawing them and creating them using natural materials on our light table, so she wanted to try an experiment using Borax.

We left these snowflakes overnight and can't wait to see what happens to them in the morning!