Hey everyone! Hope the start of term is going well for you all. Our focus to start the term is snow and ice! ideal really with the weather at the mo! THe children are loving it and are enjoying making igloo's etc. we are going on a winter walk tomorrow and the home corner is an igloo! but I just wondered if anyone is doing a similar topic and has ideas to expand on this area.
Thanks Lib

Hi, where doing the topic winter. We also have an igloo in the role play area which the children are loving. We have penguins and polar bears in the water with plastic snow flakes and have been putting ice into the water each day but have the problem of it melting so quickly. I am going to add things gradually to the water play to enhance a little more eg use food colouring etc. We have used scissors to make snow flakes. Painting snow flakes using white paint on black paper. Doing activities on the interactive whiteboard. Further activities include talking and wrting about arctic animals and homes. dressing for winter etc. Hope this helps a little. I will then compile a display from the work the children have done. 0258 x x

Ah thanks so much for your ideas, they sound lovely. Yeah we're thinking of making some little winter boxes out of shoe boxes for the children to put things into. It seems to be a good topic with this freezing weather. thanks libx

how have you made an igloo in the homecorner.....sounds wonderful

Hiya, yeah the children are loving it. We have painted lots of big empty boxes white and stacked them upon one another. . !
have a go!

Thanks... great idea... i will give it a try next week... thanks

Hi again our igloo is made from a small tent then we have pegged a white sheet over to make it white. We have then put cuddly polar bears and penguins in along with a small kitchen area for the children to pretend to make winter soup etc. We have hung the chilrens snowflakes down from the ceiling the children have made. We have put pictures all around in the role play area of artic animals etc. We have made hats that the children have to wear with an igloo on them so with limit only six children playing in the igloo at anyone time as this is a very popular area. 0258 x

Hi I don't know if this will be of any help. we are doing the same, but have based it on Snow Bears Suprise (where Snow Bear decorates the den with flowers, berries twigs etc as a suprise for mum and then she takes him and his friends to see the Northern lights) which also links in with our RE topic of 'loving families' (and how we care for each other). planning to have hats and scarves, bed and blankets etc. RE scheme suggests role play where we will say things like - 'Put your hat and scarf on if you are going out you must keep warm'. The children have been busy today making our 'snow den', like the one in the book, we also brought a water tray in from outside which had totally frozen over, they had great fun playing with polar bears etc in the icy water and then we sat on the carpet and passed pieces of the ice around, talking about the air bubbles, and holes in it and how our hands were wet etc. in reception each year they freeze polar animals in bags of water and have great fun playing with them and watching them melt.

We have made 'ice pictures' in the past, children are given an empty plastic container a frozen mousse pot seems to be the best as it it quite shallow. Children fill it with water then add resources such as sequins, glitter,coloured feathers bits of paper, contents of the hole punch etc..... anything can go in as long as it is relatively small, there is lots of discussion around how many things we can fit in before the water overflows, the colours, floating/sinking,etc some children choose to colour their water. The pots are then frozen, then removed from the freezer and the 'pictures' are turned out, the children are fascinated by the way the resources are frozen and can observe their pictures from all angles. We then leave some out to melt at room temperature, put some into the water tray and outside, again lots of talk about which ones will melt first and why....not made them for a bit ....will write it into my plans !!!

Julie

I have frozen things in margarine pots and bowls and the chldren have had to work out what is inside the ice and how many things are hiding.

I have also had a polar water tray with ice-burgs (ice cubes) etc floating in the water and polar animals too.

Some lovely ideas! I love the ice pictures Julie 12! We're doing this at the moment and have focused on 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' with a focus on the cold and frosty morning! We have made 'cold and frosty' pictures using any white and silver media, glitter, sequins, feathers, cotton wool etc and then labelled them with 'cold' words that we have discussed (really good resource on sparkle box of cold/winter words on icicles).
Next week i was going to develop by turning our playhouse into an igloo, so thank you for your ideas!
Qx

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I froze some farm animals in shallow trays last night for the children to rescue this morning. I made different resources available that the children might find helpful in their task, such as salt, warm water and Bob the Builder's tools!

The children really enjoyed it and i'm hoping that when the activity is repeated the children will have some ideas of their own.

What fun,fun,fun!!!!

Great ideas to save for next December

Wish we were doing this theme !

they may help x

We made 'snowballs' with newspaper covered in cotton wool and children throughly enjoyed throwing and aiming them into a bucket, and the older ones made tally charts of how many each child got in and counted up who was the winner

oo yeah we made snowballs with wool (you know the bobbles from bobble hats, white wool wound around two circles of card cut and tied)

I also covered the tough spot with foil and added arctic animals, ice, grey and white pebbles, laminated words and pictures of the animals and laminated photographs of cold environments e.g icebergs, north pole, igloos :)

shaving foam in the water tray and vehicles making tracks in the snow (tip, don't put too much foam, just a thin layer or you end up with snow 'drifts' rather than tracks)

even the wooden farm we put out on white furry blanket as if it had been snowing he he

This article and ideas for activities list might be of some help
http://www.foundation-stage.info/newfsf/ar...Article_189.php

Just wanted to say thanks for all the great ideas on this thread - we have been using the current cold and icy weather as our focus for the week and the children have really enjoyed this and want to contiune to next week and was a bit stuck as how to move this on - now the only problem i have is how to fit all the fab ideas in. By the way i got my igloo from IKEA (sure its been on here before) but it is a childrens tent which only cost me £4.95 that looks just like an igloo!

I love the ideas on here they are wonderful.

Just a thought we have a winter cave in our role play area, it was originally made for christmas display on The gruffalo's child and has now been moved into role play for can't you sleep little bear and will also be adapted for Wer'e going on a bear hunt.

It's made out of really thick cardboard, chicken wire and mod rock, very hard wearing and the kids loved getting messy to add the mod rock and paint

Hi,

I'm going to move this into topics.

We've been having huge fun with a big lump of ice that had formed in a baby bath left out in our garden. We brought it in and put it in the water tray. There were several toys frozen into it along with leaves. Some frozen onto the surface had left immpressions of their shape. We added salt and listened to the crackling and watched it dissolve. This morning we added pinches of powder paint and watched the colours merge. What's left has gone back outside again to possibly refreeze.

Alwyn

We made a snowman then brought some real snow in to our water tray the other dayClick to view attachment

I didnt say it was a big one!!!!!

We used shaving foam in trays today. First time I'd tried it, and lets just say it was more like snow drifts and all the cars got lost in it.
Went alot further than a thought, will use less next time
Also used the powdery stuff you add water to to make snow, that worked much better

jackie

love the snowman bluestar

Where did you get the powdery stuff from? Did it make a lot of mess and how did you dispose of it?

Small but beautifully formed!

The powdery stuff is called magic snow.
You just add water & watch it grow (that's what it says on the box)
You can actually see it and the kids were amazed. Once dried it can be used again.
I bought it in a local shop, it had been reduced from £9.99 to £4.99, but it is only a little box.
And no no mess, we'll be using it all week, in fact I bought another box yesterday,

jackie.

Hi all!

Only just joined the forum and i think all your ideas are fantastic especially for somebody with not much experience as myself. Only on my second year of teaching, taught nursery last year which i loved and am now with a combined year one and two class. Its quite challenging trying to do foundation phase and still cover the national curriculum with my year 2 pupils.

Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas and enjoying the break!!

Thanks for all the help.

Sian x

Welcome to the forum MissHapus, I am sure you will find lots of good ideas on here, and there are one or two teachers who also try to manage yearR and year! and Year 2 teachers who regularly contribute. You will find a lot of support too from just about everyone. I hope you continue to pop in and let us know how you are getting on with your classes.

Now available in my local pound shop I also bought at the pound shop a snow blanket which is fluffy white fabric with glitter woven in . I'm hoping to use it with various small world for 'winter'. I found it too late to use with my Christmas 'angel' small world which went down well.

Just make sure that the children don't get to think that penguins and polar bears live together, like sadly enough this mistake is done in books, films and web sites. It is important for us to help them understand they live in opposite polar regions .

Fantastic ideas, and as the weather is predicted to get snowy again I think I might be using some of them!

Just one more: children can use sugar lumps to make tiny igloos or use empty milk cartons to make larger ones. (We always have loads of these at the end of the week as our milk is delivered in 1 pint plastic cartons.)

how to make a milk carton igloo

Cool! Pity we can't get those plastic milk cartons in the country I actually live. Great idea for those who could have the chance to do it. Thanks for sharing.

Happy new year all, I am using winter as the veihcle for learning in my classroom and i have an observed lesson next week in numeracy, i was thinking of using 5 little snowman but cant' think of how to use it? x

me too TOMORROW!!! Its 'a ready for OFSTED' pre inspection by our lead co-ordinator?? I'm doing dripping icicles with missing numbers in the drips as input, I've frozen threading number beads in ice cube blocks to go in the tuff spot, my TA will be turning empty coke bottle into snowmen for a skittle game and we will be designing a tally chart for scoring (hopefully this will get boys recording) Outside wrapping our community playthings large blocks in white paper to make an igloo I'm adding polystrene pieces to the water tray with a selection of small world polar bears with the days challenge question being "Can a polar bear float in the water tray?" We do a rhyme before we go to dinner so planning on doing 5 little polar bears and thats just the morning......

Just one more: children can use sugar lumps to make tiny igloos or use empty milk cartons to make larger ones. (We always have loads of these at the end of the week as our milk is delivered in 1 pint plastic cartons.)
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Morning all,

Our current topic is Houses and Homes. We did the sugar lump igloos and children enjoyed making them (also got them to lick sugar cube and taste bit of salt to distinguish between sweet and salty - make sure you have glass of water handy for after salt!).
- Turn a paper plate upside down and cover with foil.
- Smear icing sugar on surface to bind sugar cubes to.
- Explain to children that each layer needs to move slightly inwards to create domed effect.
- Leave top open slightly for 'smoke' to escape from fires.
- Make snowman in front of igloo by joining 2/3 marshmallows together with a toothpick. Give him
toothpick arms and use raisins/ chocolate buttons/ food colouring to make face.

My turn to ask for advice please...our focus next week is on special houses (houses around the world). We will be making a tent from clothes horse and putting a sleeping bag and torches inside; and creating a castle facade out of cardboard boxes. Any other ideas?????

Thanks,

Saffa

When we did Handa's Suprise etc I put some small bricks in the tuff spot (an old yenga set) mixed clay until it was really sloppy and left some short pieces of straw. The children loved trying to build an African hut. Putting the straw roof on was a problem and they ended up getting art straws out as support which eventually went soggy and crash...

Thanks Biccy, will give it a try.
Good luck for your observation next week.