Our topic for this week is Animals in Winter.  Today we talked about the things that animals do in the winter that are different from people.  Since we don't see animals running around in hats, gloves, and scarfs.....we figured that they must do something different to keep warm!

The book of the day helped start our discussion about animals in winter.  We read When It Starts to Snow by Phillis Gershator.  In this story, we follow many animals as it starts to snow outside.  The sparrow starts to look for seeds to take to the nest, the geese fly south for warmer weather, the fish go deep in the ocean looking for warmer weather, and the bear heads off to his cave to go to sleep.  Story time was so quiet today. The kids really enjoyed the pictures in this beautiful book!

We wanted to teach the kids the "grown up" words for what animals do, so we made up a poem to help them remember!  Now, I'm not exactly Emily Dickinson.....but, if I say so myself.....it's pretty cute!  And most importantly, the kids can say it with only a few cues!  It goes like this:

What do animals do in winter?
Migrate, Migrate, go off to a warmer place.
Hibernate, Hibernate, sleep off all the food we ate.
Change, change, look a different way today!
What do animals do in winter?

For art, we used those very special ART marshmallows to make an igloo house covered with snowballs.  These aren't the marshmallows for eating.....they are the kind for art projects!  I think we sold the kids on this because I didn't see too many disappearing into tiny mouths!  They loved gluing them marshmallows and we talked about what kinds of animals might want to live in our houses.  We will let them dry at school tonight and send them home tomorrow!  Then you will have to be on high watch that the marshmallows stay where they are.....

Ms. Michelle was back from her vacation today.  She brought scooters for the kids to push and be pulled around on.  They LOVED this!  She also taught them all to crab walk.  We definitely need some practice.....those arm muscles are just not that strong!  She also let the kids decorate some snowflakes with fuzzy balls and packing peanuts.....after they used clothespins to pick things up and words to make choices between the different colors!  So many hidden OT and Speech things embedded into a simple art activity!  That's why we love Ms. Michelle!!