November themes : weather, winter, snowmen

Hello everyone! I am late again with my November post, it seems like there has been no end to the busyness, and unexpected turns around here lately! I have finally found a few minutes to sit still at my computer so I can write up a little post about the November themes we used for my son's preschool adventure.

Originally I had 4 themes planned, there was meant to be a theme on Fairytales in there as well. Although we did read a few fairytales this month, the rest of those activities were put on the back burner. It snowed!! Which was the all consuming event of November for my littles. They waited at the window for ages the day the forecast said snow. I'm pretty sure my youngest (11 months) was more interested in standing beside her brother than the actual snow, but my toddler was very excited. All fairytale activities were put aside so that we could focus on the much more exciting themes of winter. So here is a peak at how our November went around our little homeschool preschool!

Weather

One of the things we focused on in our weather theme was checking outside everyday and deciding what the weather was. I had some stickers left over from a different project with clouds and suns and raindrops, so we would put a sticker on the calendar for each day. If we hadn't had the stickers we would likely have just drawn pictures instead. This was a fun start to the week, and my son very much enjoyed getting to "check outside" every morning.

We also talked about what type of clothes we needed for different types of weather and coloured pictures of mittens and umbrellas.

Handily enough, at the end of this week we saw our first snow, which was a good chance to put some of those skills into action, picking out clothes to go outside to play in.

Most of the end of the week was lost to rides in the sled and shoveling and snowmen. We did make sure our snowman was dressed for the weather as well, with a hat and boots and mittens. We also practiced our alphabet by writing it in the snow and worked on some good gross motor skills and coordination by helping to shovel off the sidewalks!

Winter

This week also had a lot more outdoor playing in the snow, but we did do several crafts as well. We made snowflakes out of paper and popsicle sticks, which meant working on our gluing, cutting, folding, painting and listening skills!

The paper snowflakes are simple to make and just require a square sheet of paper, folded into triangles repeatedly, and some scissors. I let my little guy guide the patterns himself and he was so excited every time we unfolded them to see what his snowflake looked like.

For the popsicle stick snowflakes we just glued 3 sticks together in the middle to make an asterisk type shape, one that dried I let him loose with a brush and some blue, white and purple paint and he had a blast. It was a super simple craft, that he had a lot of fun with.

We also read "Simon and the Snowflakes" several times. This is a super short book, with beautiful illustrations, that we grabbed from the library, and it gave us a chance to practice counting as well.

The final thing we did for our winter theme, is a new sensory bin. We are likely to keep using this same bin, with only slight variations through the end of January, much like we did with our fall bin. We just used cotton balls and some old christmas bows, as well as some "winter" animal toys from his little people toy collection. The type of play depends on the day, but quite often he is rescuing the animals from a snow storm.

Snowmen

The final theme we worked on in November was Snowmen. We did make a real snowman this week on the few days it was warm enough for the snow to be sticky. We also ate snowman snacks, like carrot sticks and cucumber "buttons".

Our main craft this week was a snowman made from cut up construction paper, old buttons, and cotton balls. Lots more gluing fun with this one.

We sang frosty the snowman, over and over, and made snowmen out of playdough. The playdough snowmen as it turns out were quite aggressive and ended up having a playdough snow ball war which left both sides completely obliterated. They were then turned into pancakes, and pretend eaten by my toddler. As with everything, I try to guide my kiddo a little, but I do my best to let his imagination take him wherever he wants it to.

Other activities

Outside of the themed week, my son also got to help make supper several times. He really likes cooking with us, and he made(as much as was safe to do) breakfast for supper for us one night. We had french toast, he helped crack the eggs, measure the ingredients, and beat the eggs himself. He also dipped the bread for us. My husband did the actual cooking of the French Toast, but it was otherwise done almost entirely by our toddler. It was super good, and he was so very proud that he had made us dinner.

I love watching him develop skills outside of "schoolwork". He has been getting very good at learning to shovel snow, though usually he just moves it all back onto the sidewalk we have just cleared. We have been working on getting dressed as well, and he is starting to get the hang of that also.

All in all this was a super fun month, even if it was overtaken by the excitement of our first snow.