Winter Activities

Today is the first day in a long time that it officially felt like winter.  The wind was biting cold and the temperature never got above freezing.  When I got home, I even got to see the remnants of the snowfall from earlier in the day (snowed at home but not a work...does that tell how far from home I work).  In honor of winter, I thought I would share some winter activities with you.

The one thing that I love about winter is snow.  I want to build a snowman every year, but it doesn't always snow or snow enough for snowmen.  I starting thinking how we could build snowmen in the classroom but still review the skills we need to be learning.  After seeing Ashley's Hughes super cute snowmen clipart, the idea hit me that I could make a Build a Snowman sight word game.  To try it out and see how it works, I created the game for the second grade list of Dolch words and it is a FREEBIE.

Students are placed in groups of two to four.  The cards are shuffled and put in middle of the students.  The first student takes the top card off of the pile.  If the student can say the sight word on the card, he/she gets to keep the card.  The goal is to collect all the parts to build a snowman before the other players do.  There are also some tricky cards in the game.  There is one card that makes you put all of your cards back in the pile in the middle and another card that lets a player take a second turn if he/she can say the sight word on the card.

If you are looking for some math winter ideas, I also have my winter fact family packet that includes three activities that can be used in math centers (tubs) or individually for interventions. The first activity has students create the equations to match the three numbers in the fact family (Snowman Families). The second activity has the student find the missing number before creating the fact family equations (Missing Numbers). The final activity has the students pick two numbers and create fact family equations using those two numbers (Snowflake Families).

This packet aligns with the Common Core Standards:

• First Grade - Operations and Algebraic Thinking:  Understand and apply properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.  Add and subtract within 20.  Work with addition and subtraction equations.
• Second Grade - Operations and Algebraic Thinking:  Add and subtract within 20. 

If you are looking for more great winter activities to complete with your students, check out Denise from Sunny Days in Second Grade's linky party:  Show and Tell Tuesday.