Snow Days, Snow Play, Snow Learning My Way.

In lieu of "What's in the Box Wednesday" I am going to post about snow unit studies and outdoor play today. We have had quite a bit of snowfall here, and a lot of fun playing in it and learning about it!

On product we used to learn about snow (and do fun snow activities) is this FREE snow mini-helper from currclick: Snow Mini Helper

We have also been reading lots of books about snow, and winter for my preschooler:



For The Snowy Day we have a FREE lap book from www.homeschoolshare.com:
The Snowy Day Lapbook

We also used the "S is for snowman" printables from
to keep with our "snow" theme.

You can find the link to those activities here: S is for Snowman

We also made an animal board for Antartica because we are using the Expedition Earth curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler, and we are getting ready to start Anatartica to stay with our winter theme. My 3 year old has a fascination with penguins right now so I got some penguin books from the library (both fiction and non fiction) and I also got a book for about $4 at Mardels called Penguins and Mittens that I will be starting with both kids (but mostly Alex) next week. To top it all off I found a penguin clip/magnet that I can use to hold together and display the papers Alex does and it made him so excited! He can't wait!

Isabella's art project this week was also winter related, but I cannot tell you about that until Saturday, or else I will have nothing to talk about then! Lets just say it is cute, and I got it at Barnes and Noble for 50% off! Go me!

For outdoor play, we bought an inflatable toboggan, only to discover that Alex had chewed on and ruined the tube to my air pump. (Never a dull moment around here!) So hopefully we get this thing aired up soon so we can go sledding. It will be Alex's first time. I can't wait!


Since the pump was ruined, the kids settled for making snow angels and general snow frolicking.

I filled spray bottles with food coloring and vinegar so the could spray and write in color in the snow.

Bella's snow writing says "Season's Greetings" in green. Alex tried to write his name. 

Once I got cold, I bribed everyone in with hot chocolate and marshmallows, and we put a log in the fire.

I love snow days!

Countdown to Christmas...23 Days!

Today is officially my last day wearing the walking boot for even a partial day, so there is something to celebrate right there!

For dinner we are having pumpkin pancakes, and for activities, we are having Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, all over this place!

So far today we have read 10 pages from Hark! A Christmas Sampler, Read today's selection from The Jesse Tree, taking our ornament and candy out of our advent envelopes, and I now have a coloring page for each story we read.

We also read about Mexico in our Christmas around the World activities from Expedition Earth and made paper bag luminaries, using battery operated candles.

When we finished all of that, we just hadn't had enough (I know, right?) So we made hand print ornaments, another idea from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Here is the link to her instructions and pictures: snowman handprint ornament I actually used the acrylic fillable Christmas ornaments so that I wouldn't have to worry about them breaking during the creation or shipping process.

I went ahead and added the links for everything you would need to make the ornament crafts, and also a link for battery operated candles, so you would know what you are looking for but I found the candles 2 for $3.99 at Target, so the candles can be found cheaper. The book I haven't found anywhere but on Amazon so I bought it there myself.