Ice, mud, and snow took turns coating the ground this week, making for a variety of outdoor play experiences.  We slipped and slid around then cracked open the air bubbles trapped in the ice layers.  As the temperatures warmed, puddles of water and mud were dotted around the yard, which became paint, stew, and mud pits.  The temperatures cooled again, and we were showered with soft fluffy white flakes, just right for shoveling, forming into snowballs, and building miniature snowmen.For art on Monday we read Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, then made winter forest night-time art by using our fingers to tear brown paper into tree trunks and branches, then adding white paper and paint for layers of snow and falling flakes.
After art, the Monday students took their monthly trip to the library with Tammy and Susan, where they had a quiet morning playing trains, reading, caring for babies, playing battleship, and using the doll house.Our week was once again dedicated to the upcoming Winter performance, the arrival of winter solstice, and the holidays surrounding this season.  The students continued to practice their songs.  They drew, painted, and cut out the props for This is the Jacket I Wear in the Snow.  Several students enthusiastically volunteered and diligently practiced with Susan to play the glockenspiel to “Snows Are Falling On Douglas Mountain.” At the art table they completed their ornament gifts and made night-time winter paintings with white paint and black paper.  At the writing table they made holiday cards to distribute to the residents of the local elder care facilities.We read the stories The Shortest Day and Lights of Winter, about winter solstice and holidays around the world that are celebrated around winter solstice. We read about Diwali, an Indian festival of lights, Saturnalia, an ancient roman solstice celebration, Hanukkah, a Jewish celebration, Soyal, a Hopi celebration, and Christmas, a Christian holiday, among many others.  We also introduced The Nutcracker through a picture book by Susan Jeffers.  We watched several videos of portions of the dance by the New York City ballet, including the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Mother Ginger, and Waltz of The Snowflakes.  We played the nutcracker music throughout the morning, and several of the students enjoyed dancing to it.They requested the puppets and took turns acting out Silly Sally, a fun repetitive story we introduced a few weeks ago, by Audrey Wood.
The dollhouse returned to the classroom, and the students were excited to play with it once again.
For Friday science we read What Do You Do When Something Wants to Eat You? And I See Animals Hiding.  We talked about many protective and defense mechanisms that animals use, including poison, running away, kicking, breaking off body parts, and camouflage.  We then did an experiment where we were birds using our beaks to hunt for insects in their environments.  We took turns rotating through the five colored environments, where we pecked out only the S insects hidden within the Ms.  When every student had visited every environment, we then returned to the rug where we sorted and counted out our catch.  We charted how many of each color M and S we captured.  We observed that we were able to collect more purple, orange, and greens than reds and yellows, and recognized that these were easier to spot as the colors were slightly different, while the red and yellow were exactly the same shade, making it more difficult to pinpoint them.  We dumped our captured insects into the compost and each took home a small baggie of fresh ones.