Snow and Winter

Snow Books:

The Jacket I Wear in the Snow

A Really Good Snowman by Daniel J. Mahoney

Snow by Manya Stojic

Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert

Snow by Marion Dane Bauer (Ready-to-Read Level 1)

Snowman in Paradise by Michael John Roberts (This flows like the Night Before Christmas and is a little long.)

Hello, Snow! by Hope Westergaard

Snow by Cynthia Rylant

The Snowy Day

Snow Day by Margaret McNamara (easy reader)

I Am Snow by Jean Marzollo (Hello Reader Level 1- we liked this easy reader)

The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert

Curious George in the Snow

The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader- the smaller kids lost interest since this is a longer story.

Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett

Snow! Snow! Snow! by Lee Harper - a book about sledding

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton- about a snowplow

Snow by Roy McKie and P.D. Eastman- this is a beginner book

Frog and Toad All Year by Arnold Lobel (the first chapter is about sledding, good for beginning readers)

Snow Wonder by Charles Ghigna- Step Into Reading, Step 2

Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens

White Snow, Blue Feather by Julie Downing

White Snow Bright Snow by Alvin Tresselt- the kids thought this one was okay.

Snow by Joan Clark

Hooray for Snow by Kazuo Iwamura- about sledding

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs- wordless picture book

Snow by Uri Shulevitz

Printable Early Readers:

Hubbard’s Cupboard Winter books

Snowflakes from Marcia’s Lesson Links

The Mitten in the Snow from Marcia

Hibernation and Animals in Winter:

Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft

Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson (Bear eats too much after hibernation)

The Mitten- Here is a link for the animals and a mitten you can have your student lace together.

The Hat

Bear Snores On

Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming

Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II

First Snow by Bernette Ford (bunnies out in the snow)

In the Snow by Sharon Phillips Denslow (animals out in the snow eating nuts and seeds left by a boy)
Science:

We also went outside and caught some snowflakes on black paper to observe what real snowflakes look like. This would go well with the book Snowflake Bentley.

Science: We observed a few marshmallows in a hot cup of hot cocoa. We checked the status of the marshmallows every two minutes. The kids verbally describe what they saw and I recorded it on paper. You could easily have your student draw his own observations on paper and add labels. It took about 6 minutes for our marshmallows to melt.

Science: We brought a pile of snow inside and observed it melting. You could keep a little science observation sheet and check it every half hour and then draw and label observations. If you don’t have snow in your state, then you could observe ice melting. To make this even more advanced you could talk about the different states of water: gas, solid, liquid

This is a cute activity to go along with The Mitten by Jan Brett. You can download the characters from the story along with a mitten to do a retelling of the story.

Yesterday we did a comparison on two versions of The Mitten. When we were done reading both versions we made a Venn diagram with one circle for Jan Brett’s version and one circle for Alvin Tresselt.

Math: We also did a mitten estimation a few weeks ago that would go well with these ideas. We estimated how many bears would fit into a mitten and then we counted to check. We also did this with a baby sized mitten and a full sized adult mitten.

Graph colors of mittens in the house. You could also graph who is wearing mittens, gloves or no hand covering.

Make a counting by 2s book with mittens.

Make some shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks. You can do very simple shapes such as triangles or harder ones like cubes. For my older child we talked about angles and sides.

Writing:

5 Senses Winter Poem: fill in the blanks with the sense that reminds you of winter

Winter looks like snow.
Winter sounds like singing.
Winter smells like cookies.
Winter feels cold.
Winter tastes like pie, cookies, and snowflakes.

Winter Time Acrostic Poem:

Songs:

I found this cute song about winter clothing that is sung to the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. I had Frank put the items on and we pointed to the clothing items as we sang the song. I also listed the words on the white board so that he could practice reading the words as well. When singing a song that is changed a bit, it always helps to sing the original song first. The clothing used in the song are hat, mittens, scarf, and boots.

Boots, mittens, scarf and hat

Scarf and hat

Boots, mittens, scarf and hat

Scarf and hat

In winter time we dress like that

Boots, mittens, scarf and hat

Scarf and hat!

Other:

This cute magnetic snowman idea came from No Time for Flashcards. My kids love to manipulate the magnets. Check out her site to learn how to make this. I saved up all those free magnets you get in the mail all the time and cut them up to put on the back of this craft.