Winter Theme in PreK (and real life!)

Winter Theme in PreK delayed by SNOW

Having Christmas break for two weeks had me ready to teach all about our winter theme in PreK.  My room is set up for our winter theme in PreK and I am ready to see all of my PreK friends.  However, the faint chance of snow flakes took a turn yesterday afternoon and became a warning that resulted in the photo above this morning.  So, winter theme in PreK is delayed just a bit.  Hopefully my students are getting lots of real world experience today with snow.

I also hope to have real snow in my sensory bin as soon as we get back to school, saving what you will see below for after the snow melts away.  You can see some of the other activities I have set up and ready to go below.

Using Geoboards during Winter Theme

Geoboards get used several times during the school year.  In the beginning students mostly just practice putting the bands on the boards.  By this time of year, many students can start creating the winter theme in PreK pictures from the Winter Geoboard Cards set.

I highly recommend purchasing loom bands for the geoboards.  You can get just about any color you need and you have plenty of extras for when a student breaks some from stretching too far.  You will find these bands on the floor whenever you get these out.  I purchased loom bands from Oriental Trading, but they are still available in many local craft stores as well.

Geoboards can be found on Amazon as well as other places.  For your convenience, I am sharing Amazon Affiliate links to supplies needed to prepare these centers:

Using Path Games with a Winter Theme in PreK

Path games are great for practicing taking turns, one-to-one correspondance, and counting skills.  You can also add some alphabet cards to a game like this to practice letter recognition.

The Winter Path Game comes with printable spinner as well as printables to make this a dice game.  There are also game pieces that I laminate and glue onto water bottle lids.  I find that the game pieces being glued onto the lids makes it easier for the students to successfully pick them up from the board.

Cutting and Word Building with a Winter Theme

Since I have not made a scissor skills set yet for my winter theme, I was able to find one from This Reading Mama.  I like the strips and rectangles to cut.  Sometimes students will also glue them to paper afterwards.

For students who are interested in words I have my letter tiles to build winter words.  I have sets of letter tiles in both capital and lowercase letters.  The activity cards also have capital, lowercase, and empty tiles.  The empty tiles can also be used with dry erase to write the words.  This center has lowercase letter on the cards and capital letter tiles so that students will have to match.

HELPFUL HINT:  When a student cannot find the letter, I show the student how to sing the alphabet song and point to each letter until we stop on the letter that is needed.

Amazon Affiliate links for supplies needed.  Note that the letter tiles are only currently available in a set for six classrooms.  I will update if I see an individual classroom container.  I did not share a link for the container since it was hard to tell if the ones online would fit the tiles.  The one I use is from a local craft store in the jewelry findings section.

Letter Hunt Sensory Bin for Winter Theme in PreK

I think I first saw the idea of using ping pong balls in the sensory bin on Differentiated Kindergarten’s blog.  Since I have PreK students and not kindergarten age students, I made some adjustments to her ideas.

The printable comes from my Winter Bundle.  I printed them half size and provide dot markers to mark when students find a ping pong ball with a letter on it.

Students catch a ball with the Handy Scoopers and see if they have a letter and which one it is.

HELPFUL HINT:  The cotton balls are added to muffle some of the noise of the ping pong balls moving around in the bin.

Amazon Affiliate link:

Letter Writing Practice for a Winter Theme

I found these Snowman dry erase boards at the local dollar store or maybe Walmart a few years ago.  (Always be on the lookout for seasonal items to add to your stash, especially when they go on clearance.)

I added the alphabet cards from my Winter Bundle.  Students grab a card and draw the letter.

HELPFUL HINT:  Magic eraser cleaned these up a bit since some of the dry erase marker does end up on parts that are not really meant to have writing on it.

Amazon Affiliate links:

Dramatic Play for your Winter Theme in PreK

For the first week of this month we have ice fishing and a search for Polar animals.  Some of the printables were found on Sparklebox.  I printed some of the polar regions photos.  I am very particular about not mixing Arctic and Antarctic animals when I teach about Polar regions so this week’s dramatic play will only have Arctic animals and later I will switch out to Antarctic animals.  The animal spotting form here includes a penguin but I did not put a penguin photo out so that I can explain why the students cannot find it when they have checked off everything else.

Amazon Affiliate links (not the fishing set I have, but looks cute):

 

Letter Focus in PreK

My classroom has activities that work with a variety of letters each week in my classroom, but also do a letter focus each week.  After five or six weeks I will have a review week to review just those letters.

This week the main letter focus is I, with some review of the letters we worked on before our Christmas break.

My Alphabet Bundle has many resources for letter work on individual letters, including letter books, stamping center, letter and sound search dot marker pages, alphabet building center, magnet match, and jumbo cube center, and letter tile cards.

Freebies for PreK Teachers

Be sure to check out my Freebies for PreK Teachers page.  You can find lots of helpful items there, including a Snowman patterning activity.