Sunday, April 21, 2013

April the Snowman

April 15, 2013
I am a big fan of thematic units and come April, I want to delve into spring and all the learning opportunities therein, but this year the weather is not cooperating!  My students had 1 day of recess with no snow pants, boots, hats or mittens, just regular shoes and jackets.  They were free, racing around the playground with glee!  We spend the learning day talking about the change in season, writing about the weather changes and signs of spring, reading about spring weather and doing spring related math activities.  The next day, snow!  One of my students came to school and exclaimed "Teacher!  Winter came back!"  What is a teacher to do?  Roll with it, modify and keep on teaching!  We are still keeping a tally chart of how many robins we see.  We used the snow to make clouds for our science experiment on rain.  (See science activities)  We connected with the weather by writing about what we like to do when the weather is rainy or snowy and read about characters in similar situations.  I did my best to stay optimistic and promise that spring will eventually get here.  After our 2nd snowstorm of the week another dear little learner said to me "Isn't it a pretty day!?  I'm a snow bunny, I love the snow!"
Well, this is a spring for all the snow bunnies out there.  Hang in there, the flowers are coming!