Snuggly Snow!

 

Experiment!

That word alone can get a room full of Grade One students absolutely, positively giddy! And that's how our day began, with excited kids ready to learn! Our current Science focus is on seasonal changes in Winter, and today we were exploring how some animals survive the cold. 

Do you think it is warmer under the snow or on top?

The experiment was simple: bury one thermometer in a snowbank, and leave the other sitting on top of the snow. To protect the thermometers, each was encased in a cracker box.  (Honorable mention to the Beliveau family for eating so many crackers for the sake of Science).

Off we went to set up the experiment! Students watched from indoors as Mrs. Beliveau tromped out to bury one box/thermometer UNDER and set the other ON the snow. 

We headed back to class and were very busy all day! 

Today we were introduced to the parts of a story! We made our own story retell bracelets to help cue us:

After last recess, we hustled back to check on our experiment:

Mrs. Beliveau checked the box sitting on top of the snow .....

The thermometer read -1 degrees C. 

Then Mrs. Beliveau dug out the buried box ...

The thermometer read 3 degrees C.

What?!?! 

It was warmer under the snow!

We hurried back to class, and working with a giant interactive thermometer, spent time exploring what this meant. 

Many animals have a better chance of surviving the cold winter when there is a lot of snow. This snow acts like a blanket. It traps heat from the earth, as well as an animal's body heat when an animal burrows deep. Turns out that winters with little snow are harder for plants and animals to survive!

Story retelling anchor chart and bracelets inspired by Kindergarten Chaos

Dream Snow Writing!

Our playground and field are covered in snow, so it was fitting this week to read Eric Carle's book Dream Snow!

In the story, a farmer falls asleep and dreams that snow covers his farm animals. This book is very clever! Clear plastic sheets, with "snow" on them, can be lifted to reveal the animal underneath! 

Armed with our knowledge of sentences, we made our own version of the book, but with a twist! 

Students each wrote clues about an animal of their choosing. Kids were challenged to write a sentence beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period. As well, students were required to spell Word Wall Words correctly (weekly spelling words posted on the wall).

An illustration of the animal accompanied their clues, too!

Just like in Dream Snow, a clear page with painted "snow" covered the animal, so it would be lifted up to reveal the animal hidden under the snowbank! The very best part of this was adding "snow"!

Here are the clues:

Peek under the "snow" to see the animal!

Because of their fantastic work, the hallway board near our classroom has curious students reading our clues and peeking under the snowbanks! Well done, Grade One!

Snowmen to Melt Your Heart

We had such fun this week creating our bird's eye view snowmen!

However, the project started in a boring manner. 

Very.

Very. 

Boring. 

Mrs. Beliveau asked everyone to draw white snowflakes on white paper. 

Ummm ... not exactly exciting, now is it?

However, soon the boys and girls were "ooooohhhh-ing" and "aaaahhhhh-ing"! Using water-based tempera paint, we were able to make our snowflakes appear, as if by magic! 

As our paint dried, we set to work on our snowmen. Using pastels, we traced the three balls of the snowman's body and used our fingers to smudge the pastels inward. 

After Mrs. Beliveau hot-glued the three snowballs together, including a little stack of cardboard in between to make each ball "pop" out, we were ready for the next step ... details!

Noses, arms, buttons, scarves, eyes, and even a few eyelashes were added to give our snowmen personality!

Look how charming!