Blizzard 2011

Groundhog day this year brought a blizzard of activities in our homeschool: we studied the word blizzard and how to look it up in a dictionary, then did various snow science experiments such as timing and observing a gallon of snow melting (they were amazed how little water is left after the snow shrinks away), measuring how much water expands when it freezes into ice, dying snow with food coloring and more. We also tried this delicious snow ice cream recipe, which the kids had a lot of fun with!

Hot Chocolate Lessons

Sometimes, you need to have hot chocolate just-for-the-heck-of-it. Making hot chocolate memories through the simple act of drinking hot cocoa on a cold winter's day or returning inside from playing and sledding in the snow is a childhood rite of passage! So, while you need nothing more than to simply drink and enjoy hot chocolate, here are some ideas and resources if you felt like turning one of many cocoa days into something a little more.

Winter Time Poem
by Mary Ryer
Icy fingers, icy toes,
Bright red cheeks and bright red nose.
Watch the snowflakes as they fall,
Try so hard to count them all.
Build a snowman way up high,
See if he can touch the sky.
Snow forts, snowballs, angels, too,
In the snow, so white and new.
Slip and slide and skate so fast.
Wintertime is here at last.

Story Problems
You have ______ marshmallows in your hot cocoa. You add ______ more. Now how many marshmallows are in your hot cocoa?

Caleb had ______marshmallows in his hot cocoa. ______ melted away. Now how many marshmallows are left in Caleb's hot cocoa?

You have ______ cups of hot cocoa in a teapot. If you share the cocoa with ______ friends, how many cups will be left?

Unit Study Links
This website is awesome, and here's an extensive, free unit study on Chocolate for a wide grade range, check it out! http://www.homeschoolshare.com/chocolate.php

And this one is fantastic, too! http://mrsmcgowan.com/projects/chocolate/resources.html

January
January
Now is here --
A fine new start
For a whole new year.
The snow comes down
In the dark of night.
When we awake
The world is white.
In January
When there's snow,
We get our sleds
And away we go.

Here's a link to a cool video for making your own homemade marshmallows! We haven't done it yet, but it looks like fun!

To see more weather studies we do, see my post, Weather Wheel.

First snow and making the most of Mitten fun!

How fitting for the first day of December, we have our first true snow of the season here in Michigan.
To celebrate, try some fun and games with Jan Brett's book, "The Mitten"!
Last January when our homeschool group was still very small, I did some starter activities with this book, including having everyone bring a ton of gloves and mittens so we could mix them all up and do math with mitten games, like matching, pairing, sorting according to sizes and colors, etc.

If you can knit, which I can't knit or sew to save my life but happen to have one anyway, consider making a giant white mitten like in the story, then print out paper animals for the kids to color and put inside the real mitten as you read the story. Even if you don't have a big white mitten to use, sometimes a simple song will help take it off the page and into a game.

The Mitten: for Jan Brett's The Mitten
(to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell")

The mitten on the ground.
The mitten on the ground.
Heigh-ho! It's cold outside.
The mitten on the ground.
The (mole) snuggles in.
The (mole) snuggles in.
Heigh-ho! It's cold outside.
The (mole) snuggles in.
(After the last animal, all pretend to sneeze and fall out of the mitten.)

Here is a fantastic free page with animal masks to also accompany this book specifically. The Animals in The Mitten.

Here you'll find a free mitten pattern book for your kids to create their very own mitten story. Mitten Shape Book.

And of course, give them plenty of time to play outside in the snow!!


Happy Snow Day!!!