Activities - 01/01/2002

Baby, It's Cold Outside!
Warm up with these activities for the New Year!

TIME LINE

Keep a picture time line of the New Year in your classroom.

Tape a strip of adding machine tape to your wall and choose a different child each day to write the date and draw a small illustration of something special that happened in school that day.

Add more paper to your time line as needed. (You can also highlight significant events with photographs.)

100 DAY BOTTLE

Ask each child to get a plastic bottle and fill it at home with 100 small objects. (Let them use their imaginations!) Children should bring these to school on the 100th day. Use the bottles to count by 100. Which one is the heaviest? Lightest? Takes up the most volume? etc.

(Place in your math center for continued exploration.)

HAWAIIAN HOLIDAY

If you can't fly to the islands, then bring the islands to your classroom.

First, you'll need grass skirts. Take draw string garbage bags and cut off the bottom.

Cut 1" strips up from the bottom of the bag, stopping several inches before the drawstring. Adjust drawstrings to the children's waists to complete your grass skirts.

To make leis, let children thread 1" pieces of straw and paper flowers (construction paper circles with holes poked in the middle) on dental floss.

Put on some Hawaiian music and hula hula!

Make fruit ka-bobs for snack by inserting pineapple chunks, bananas, and grapes on wooden skewers or toothpicks.

Paper umbrellas, small dolls, and boats can be added to the sand table so children can create their own tropical scenes. (A piece of blue poster board on the bottom of the sand table will enable children to create islands and water.)

FROZEN SUN CATCHERS

Take a pie pan out on the playground on a cold day.

Have the children find sticks, leaves, pine needles, and other small objects to place in the pan. Tie the ends of a 12" piece of string together to make a loop.

Insert part of the loop in the pan. (This will become the hanger for the sun catcher when the water freezes.)

Fill the pie pan with water and leave it on the playground overnight. The next day, pop out the frozen chunk of ice and hang it in a tree.

Have children predict how long it will last and observe it daily.

WINTER IN THE WATER TABLE

(This is especially fun for children who live in warmer climates.)

Take plastic bowls and containers and fill them with water. Add a few drops of food coloring if you desire and freeze in the refrigerator.

Pop out the frozen ice chunks and place them in the water table to make "icebergs." Add polar bears, penguins, and other arctic animals.

Keep a pair of mittens near the water table for children who choose to wear them.