Winter Study in Phoenix

I know, it's an oxymoron:) How do you truly study winter in Phoenix:) You gotta get a little more creative, that's all! A couple of weeks ago, that was my assigned theme and it was so fun! We made snowglobes out of baby food jars (oops, no pics) with little snowmen erasers hot glued to the inside lid and lots of glitter in the jelly/water:) SO CUTE and even more than that, a HUGE hit with the 4 and 5 year old crowd (and Z)!
We also played in lots of fake snow (styrofoam, weird fake snow stuff from walmart and cotton balls) in the texture table with fake snowflakes thrown in and clothespins to try and manipulate with them.
I made snowshoes out of cardboard to go with the "snow cabin" and let the kids pretend to be inuits or something. They did a great job imagining this week. I think the imagination part is my favorite anyway:) They decorated their snow cabin and "bundled up" in all our winter gear while they pranced around in fake snowshoes and pretended to be hunting seals:) Too cute! I guess our snow gear comes in handy every once in awhile, right?!
We also did a science project the kids loved. I found the premise of the idea online, but can't remember where my flip flops are, let alone that website:) Anyway, the kids were able to choose 3 locations to put their ice cube (in identical containers). They chose 1. bookshelf, 2. oven, 3. outside the front door. Then they had to make a hypothesis on how it would look in 20 minutes. Third, we checked our results. We talked about WHY they chose their hypotheses and their reasoning and then reconciled with what really happened. Their little brains did some hard work and they were so happy with the results! Who knew ice and tupperware could be so amazing!?

All in all, it was a great week. I so love teaching preschool. I love doing journaling time with them and listening to their logic. I love watching them play and cohort and reconfigure and work together. Lucky, lucky me!