Weekly Wrap-up 1/14/11

Last week we spent time at the South Pole. This week it is all about the arctic and the North Pole.

My kindergarteners have been enjoying an array of picture books, including:

Jan Brett's Snowy Treasury--This includes 4 of Jan Brett's favorite wintertime books.

The Polar Bear Son--A tale in which an old Eskimo-Inuit woman adopts an orphan polar bear cub that provides food for her as it grows up.
Who Lives Here? Polar Animals and another Polar Animals--These two books are perfect for introducing polar animals and the arctic habitat to kindergarten aged kids.

Lastly, we have been watching Growing Up Arctic over and over again. We all enjoy this video!!

It includes a polar bear, seal, walrus and a bonus episode: Growing up Penguin. The animals are saved as babies and raised in zoos. A great Discovery video.

Last week we made penguins, this week we are making polar bears.

Kimberly's new Toob polar bear is helping her make a "circle" polar bear.

All the Arctic toob animals and Inuit come to see Kimmy's polar bear.

Dizios has been the game of the week----it is fun for all ages and even my youngest could play.

The littles also enjoy playing it as a matching game, not only a "keeping score" game.

My little cupcake, with help from big sister Gracie, made mini cupcakes for Grandpa.

You can check out the whole post here.

I didn't have a car on Saturday morning....the morning of the Lowes Build and Grow program.

The kids really look forward to this, so Daddy called the local Lowes store and they kindly saved 4 kits for the kids. (I had pre-registered).

Daddy helped make them at home. This week was a real fun game box, complete with chalkboard lid.

(How did Kimberly manage to get in every picture this week?)

Woven snowflakes was the wintery craft of the week.

Kim and Luke had no problem making these with a bit of instruction at the start.

You can check out the full Woven Snowflake post here.

Luke and Kim working on the letter Pp.

We have been working on number recognition through the number 30. Both Kim and Luke are doing quite well at this.

Above, Kimmy is simply matching the numbers 1-30 on her number card.
From her expression, you can see that she considers this A LOT of work, but she can do it!

I have been busy trying to get snowflake photos with my point and shoot camera.... I have to admit, I am proud of these pictures, although I wish I could zoom in even closer.

Our interest in snowflakes has come from the video of the book Snowflake Bentley...it is one of our favorite winter books..and videos.

Our learning wall is FULL!!!! I find many of the printable I use on our learning wall at ChildcareLand.

I found these great printables to use with the book Polar Bear Polar Bear What do You Hear?

I got the printables from DLTK Crafts.

The big kids aren't being ignored during all this fun.

They continue to get their daily work done so they can join in the fun with the kindergarteners.

Mark has completed his Post Civil War studies and has moved on to the wild west.

Gracie is beginning Colonial times using the American Girl books-Felicity.

I am also very glad to report that Gracie has learned all her multiplication facts through the 9 times table...I am soooo proud of her.

And to finish up the week.....Guess what we are getting this weekend??