It's Winter!

Sensory Exploration
Winter is a very quiet season. The world of nature - the trees, the animals - are at rest. It is very peaceful.
We wanted the young toddlers to gain an appreciation for this calmness and peacefullness. To fully explore, connect and experience the world around them by using their senses.

At circle time, we spoke about how it is now the season of "Winter". Everyone had a turn to try and say this new word (to help us with our speech and communication skills). But what is it like outside in the winter time? We went on a walk to the woods to find out, singing "What do we see? What do we see? What do we see in the winter time?" (filling in hear, smell, and feel)


There is so much to SEE.

We noticed our shadows on the ground. Our shadows were "walking" as we walked.



The children looked up to see the trees. Most of the trees had "no more leaves". "Where did the leaves go?" Morah asked. The response, "Leaves fell down."






We saw snow and ice. One piece of ice had a leaf stuck inside it.

We stopped to SMELL the snow, the trees, and the air to raise our awareness of using this sense. Everything we TOUCHED was so "cold".

Do you hear anything? Let's LISTEN. It was so quiet. We heard some ice crack as we stepped on it. We payed close attention to the sounds as we heard the water in the river rush over a rock.Back in our classroom we worked on reinforcing this listening skill. At snack time, all the children were so so quiet and we then heard the sound of a child biting their carrot, crunching a pretzel, or drinking their juice. We were so excited at the sounds we discovered by really listening.

Helping Toddlers Understand the World Around Them
We found a really big piece of ice outside. We put it in a box and brought it into our classroom to experiment and see what would happen. While the ice had not yet melted, Morah overheard a conversation between an adult and one of the toddlers. The adult commented on the ice in the box, to which the child adamantly declared, "No. Snow!"
As educators it is our responsibility to help the children understand the world around them. Hearing this, Morah realized the child had not fully understood the new winter vocabulary of "snow" and "ice".

Bearing this in mind, we brought in a bowl filled with chunks of ice and a bowl filled with soft flaky snow for the children to COMPARE. We noticed: Both are cold. The snow is white and can be squished in our hands, while the ice hard - we were able to bang two pieces together, unlike the snow.

We put the ice by the science table and went back to look at it the next day. The observations: "Where ice go?" "Water." "My hand is all wet." "Cold."
We tried the experiment again - this time looking at the ice when it was half melted so we saw both the ice and the water. The ice is MELTING.

Cotton as Snow. Do the children understand the representation?
As adults, we use different mediums to represent things. Paper circles for a snowman. Green for grass. But does a toddler see the connection? We can only know if we talk about it. So we added some white fluffy cotton to our sensory boxes - being careful not to link it with the real snow outside. As the children engaged with the cotton we talked about it's features - it was white and soft.
Later on we looked at our winter scene board and saw the snow on the ground and on the trees. Morah asked the children, "Is there any snow on our class tree." We went to look and saw, "No snow." Morah continued, "Snow is so cold and white and soft (as we have previously experienced). Is there anything else in our classroom that is white and soft?" After a moment, two of the children excitedly went to the box filled with cotton saying "Snow!" Morah then asked, "Is this snow? Let's feel it. Is it cold?" We touched it. "It's not cold like real snow, but it is white and soft. Would you like to use it as pretend snow to put on our tree?" Now that we know what we are using the cotton to represent, the children put the "snow" on our class tree.

Happy Birthday!
We have been sharing so many special birthdays together. Happy 2nd Birthday to Evan, Maggie, Mateo and Miriam Sara.

Enjoy,
Morah Chaya K, Morah Chaya G and Morah Batsheva