More winter theme activities
The imagery of winter inspires many Art and Language Arts winter theme activities for young children.
White snow, frosty patterns, colbalt blue shadows, and spots of color against white snow supply ideas for winter pictures and booklets.
Art winter theme activities
Make a snowflake
Have students make their own large snowflakes or have a parent helper cut out snowflakes using the snowflake tracer. Another tracer is available for the face, hat and mitts.
Make Snowman Art
Another winter theme activity begins with colored construction paper, white paint and cotton balls. 
Have the children first draw the snowman circles and snow with white paint mixed with white glue.
Encourage them to make their snowmen different sizes and looking in different directions for a more interesting picture. Attach cotton balls to the wet paint. Decorate with bits of colored construction paper.
Winter theme activities - Language Arts
Make a winter theme vocabulary book
Have children cut out pictures and classify. Make sure you have taught this winter theme activity using real objects as suggested in the math activities section on the previous page.
Put 4 or 5 white pages together, staple at the top, then cut through all the pages at once to make a snowman shaped booklet.
Glue each category of winter words on individual pages, one for winter foods, one for winter clothes, another for winter weather.
Reading winter theme activites
Read and reread stories with winter themes
|
 |
|
Joyful illustrations and the simple text of "Snow (I Can Read It All By Myself Beginner Books) |
|
White Snow, Bright Snow |
 |
|
The Mitten by Jan Brett |
 |
|
|
The Mitten |
|
Another all time winter favorite is The Snowy Day |
" by P.D. Eastman make it a great read. 
by Alvin Treselt and Roger Duvoisin First published in 1947, "White Snow, Bright Snow" captures the wonder children feel during a snowfall. 
Kids love Jan Brett's story about the snowy white mitten and love to join after a few readings. 
by Alvin Tresselt. Another version of this great tale. 
by Ezra Jack Keats. Ezra Jack Keat's award winning books are a must for the classroom. His stories also come in a DVD format. Act out "The Mitten" story
- Read and compare two versions of "The Mitten"
- Pretend a table is the big white mitten and the children take turns being the various characters and crawling inside.
- Another winter theme activity is to make a snowy white mitten to practice sequencing the story. Use this large mitten tracer to make your own lightweight card mitten or purchase a big white mitten from the store.
- I always had the children make their own mitten, but relied on a parent helper to cut the mittens out, punch the holes, and help the kids sew them together with yarn.
- The children can then draw pictures of the animals, cut them out and retell the story. Have a chart posted with pictures of all the animals and the animal words on it.
TEACHER TIPSome children spend way too long trying to cut out around each leg of the animals with these types of activities. The jagged cuts get caught on the sides of the mitten and tear. Teach them to draw a circle around each one of their animals and then cut out around the circle.
|
Make predictable charts & class books
Read and reread Rainby Robert Kalan and Donald Crews.
- Make mini-books based on the book such as, "Snow on the green grass, snow on the purple flower" or "Frost on the…"
- Encourage kids to come up with different ideas from the book
- Create your own ending to match the style of the book, such as a big snowman on the last page.
Winter activities for Reading/ Writing Centers
- Prepare little books for the children to draw in, such as "Winter, winter what is winter?"
- Copy the frame sentence "Winter is ____" on each page
- Add words and pictures to the writing center bulletin board for the children to copy.
- As always, model the activity to the group first using a larger version of what you would like them to do. E.g. Winter is cold snow, winter is snowmen, winter is hot chocolate...
Reading Center
- Read books about the New Year, the order of months, month by month books
- Do a Jan Brett author study.
- Compare her books, her illustration style, her use of borders. The children are soon able to name her as the author just by looking at her book cover.
- Put Jan Brett books into your winter book display.
Go from Winter Theme Activities to previous page
Theme pages table of contents
Teaching themes:
How to teach content filled kindergarten themes - What are the benefits of teaching with themes, sample pond unit content, how to use themes to teach skills
Suggestions for yearly themes - How to choose age appropriate themes and suggestions for yearly themes
Tips for teaching themes - more ideas for choosing themes that are appropriate for the preschool and kindergarten ages, how to integrate subjects, how to use projects to measure the students' learning
Specific themes:
Apple theme - count, sort, sequence, compare and cook; learn about apple growth and the seasons
Light and color theme - integrate math, science, social studies, literacy and holiday ideas as you study about light and color. A great sparkly holiday time theme.
Light and color theme science page - light sources, experiment with opaque, translucent, and transparent papers, experiment with reflective and non-reflective materials, light vocabulary
Winter theme - winter activities that teach symmetry, patterning, classifying, and ordinal numbers; science activities about the properties of water and hibernation
More Winter theme activities - language arts and art ideas