In Nursery, when we get some wintry weather, we often quickly adapt our daily plans to learn about ice and snow and to read winter themed stories. Obviously, planning for remote learning makes this a bit trickier, so we’ve planned these activities based upon the forecast of some more cold weather heading in our direction! If this doesn’t happen, please pick and choose the activities that you can do, and save some of the others for the next cold day!
Reading
There are lots of great stories that take place in a snowy setting. You might have ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ at home or a favourite story that involves penguins or polar bears. Here’s a story for you to watch called ‘The Snowy Day’.
- How do you feel like when you open the curtains, look out of the window and see snow?
- Can you remember the sound that Peter’s feet made as he walked through the snow? We love listening to the ‘crunch’ of freshly fallen snow!
- What tracks did Peter find in the snow? Have you ever seen some tracks in the snow? What made the tracks?
- Peter put a snowball in his pocket. What happened? Where did the snowball go?
Phonics
In Nursery, we practise our listening skills when we’re singing and using instruments. We have to shake the instruments until we hear the music stop. Find something at home that you can use to make a noise – this could be an instrument, a pot with rice in or a wooden spoon and a pan! Shake or bang along to the music and remember to listen carefully for when to stop.
Mark-Making
- Draw a snowman. Think carefully about what shape you need to use for the body and head. How many eyes do you need to draw? What shape could you use for a carrot nose?
- Paint a winter picture. What colours would you use?
- Draw around your hands and carefully cut them out to make some paper gloves. Add patterns to decorate the gloves. Will they be spotty or stripy?
- Add a small amount of water to a baking tray (shallow) and put it out overnight when the weather forecast is cold. Hopefully, when you return to it in the morning, you will have a thin sheet of ice. Bring it inside and have a go at painting on it. What happens?
Mathematics
- You will need a large snowman outline (cut out white paper circles or draw one onto paper) and some buttons/pompoms/beads for buttons. Just like in our previous Gingerbread Man activity, put 1-6 buttons on the snowman and count how many buttons the snowman has. Encourage children to count carefully, pointing/touching each button as they say each number. Some children will work with numbers up to 3 confidently, others may be able to work with numbers to 5 or 10. Choose the number of buttons according to your child’s confidence levels.
- On a different day, instead of counting how many buttons are already on the snowman, ask children to select a given number of buttons from a pile. They may find this tricky and sometimes forget to stop! Keep the numbers small, below 3-4 to start with. (If your child can do this, increase the numbers up to 10.) Remind your child how many buttons they need to get and what number they are going to ‘stop’ at. Keep checking as they count – have they reached the ‘stop’ number yet?
- If your child is working confidently counting up to 6, introduce a dice. Roll the dice once each and add the corresponding number of buttons to your snowman. Which snowman has the fewest/most buttons?
Extension ideas
Some of our older children might enjoy playing the ‘Snowman Dice Game’ from Twinkl. The mark making skills required might be a too challenging for some children, but you could always draw the pieces onto paper and then collect each part as you roll the dice.
Creative
- Create a winter tree picture using some twigs that you collect from your garden or a walk. You will need some coloured paper, twigs, glue, cotton buds and white paint.
- Need some quiet time? Grab your favourite snack and a blanket and enjoy watching ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs.
- Are you wearing a woolly jumper to keep warm? Here’s Aunty Mable and Pippin in an old episode of ‘Come Outside’ telling us all about how they are made.
Understanding the World
- Talk to your child about the seasons. The BBC has a short video clip that you could watch to discuss things that you can see changing as the seasons change. Children might be able to spot some of the autumnal changes that we talked about in Nursery before Christmas.
- What season is it now? How do we know? What clothes do we wear in winter? How is this different to summer time? Listen to this song all about winter – Did you talk about some of the things in this video?
- On your next walk, have a look for some signs of winter. We’ve created a Winter Scavenger Hunt sheet for you to print or copy. Take it with you on your walk and tick off the items as you find them.
If your child comments on some of the changes that they see and you have time, please make a note of the words that they use and send us an email with their comments. (Please note it down word for word, just as they say it!)
- Investigate freezing and melting. Choose a selection of objects (that can go in water and be frozen!) and put them into some empty pots (yogurt pots, ice cube trays) with a small amount of water. Freeze them overnight (or longer) and remove once they’re frozen. Put the frozen items into a tray and allow your child to investigate. What does it feel like? What has happened to the water? Play with the ice and watch what happens to them over time. Talk about the changes that children can see happening. What’s happening to the ice? Discuss the basic process of melting and think about other things that might melt such as ice-creams on a sunny day.
Physical Development
Fiddly Fingers
Lots of us have memories of making paper snowflakes as a child and we thought that this would be a great activity to practise our ‘snipping’ skills. You will need some paper (cut it into a square shape) and a pair of children’s scissors. Loosely, follow these instructions on how to fold your paper – don’t worry too much about this part! In Nursery, we’re interested in learning how to fold and use scissors safely, rather than a perfect snowflake at the end of the process! Please ensure that your child is supervised when using their scissors. Show your child where to cut and let them enjoy snipping the paper. What does it look like when you open it out?
Movement
Join in with these Cosmic yoga sessions at home. There’s a shorter clip, Winter Wonderland, and a longer story called Joybob The Polar Bear.
Independence skills
At this point of the year in Nursery, we usually have a long line of children needing help to put their gloves on before we go outside! Over the next few weeks, encourage your child to put on their own gloves. Teach them to close their fingers at first to get their hand into the glove and then to open them slightly and wiggle each finger into place. Keep trying – it’s tricky!
Key Worker activity/videos
In our Key Worker session this week, we’re going to do our ‘Dough Disco’ song. Those of you that join our Zoom sessions will be able to have another go and practise each of the moves. You’ll need a small ball of playdough (or similar), just enough to fit in your child’s palm.
We also like to sing this song on cold, snowy days. It’s called ‘5 Little Snowmen’.
Friday Story Time
Are you sitting comfortably? Great, here’s Mrs Long with our story for this week. It’s called ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers.
