Sunshine and Snow

 As Christmas rolls around, I am getting  nostalgic for snow! In Oregon, it RARELY snowed on Christmas, but we usually got at least one dusting of snow throughout the winter. Now that we are in California, we are driving with the windows down and riding bikes without coats on Christmas Eve, and LOVING it! While we are so enjoying the sunshine, sometimes I yearn for a snow day.

With our homeschool last week, we had the opportunity to learn about different animal tracks in the snow. The kids had so much fun talking about the different patterns of the animals foot prints and what they look like.

We used play dough to demonstrate prints in the snow and the tracks animals might leave with their feet. 

The kids loved making their own tracks in the snow with q-tips and paint. They had a little reference guide to help them decide which track to make for certain animals. Most of all, they love to paint. I need to take our paints out more often!

Everyday, I try to have Jonathan practice writing the letter of the week or his name.  The letter for last week was "P," and Mother Goose Time provides these wonderful journals for the children to practice their letters and fine motor skills. Jonathan is really coming along in his printing! He is a hard worker.

MGT also planned this really sweet game where we matched the animal to the print they leave behind. We talked about how BIG animals leave BIG prints and SMALL animals leave SMALL prints. We also talked about other places we might find prints such as: sand at the beach, or mud in our backyard.

We read a couple different books this day, "Tracks in the Snow" (as recommended by MGT) and "Snowy Day." Amazon Prime happens to have a short film animating the book "Snowy Day" so I had the kiddos watch that one too. They LOVED it! We also may have watched part of their favorite movie, "Bambi" that night to talk more about animals tracks.

Since we are living in California, we don't see snow unless we drive to it.  So I pulled out some old photos and videos of the kids playing a couple years ago. We had so much fun looking at these old memories!

Snow Day 2016

Ha! That face!