What if I was in a snow globe?

This was the prompt I gave my class in writing one day last week. I asked my students if they knew what a snow globe was. Only about half knew what it was. When we began describing it, I had several "Ooohhh!"s.  I showed them the shape that a snow globe is - a big circle with a trapezoid base. I had my kinders think about what they love to do in the snow (which takes some imagination since we don't really get snow in our little section on SC!). They got to share their idea out loud, something I don't always allow for fear of idea-snatching! ;) I then encouraged extra hard beautiful hand-writing, good spacing, and periods.
The next day, I had my kids put on their coats and hats and gloves if they had them and sit on the rug. (What?) Then I read two winter stories at a time and had the kids act out what they wrote! 
I took the photos with two kids and cut them apart as you will see below (to save paper!).

Then, I cut the pictures super close and glued them into the snow globe!

Lastly, I let the kids finger paint show!

Pinpirations found here! Thank you so much!

http://www.mrsjumpsclass.com/February.htm

http://www.ashleigh-educationjourney.com/2011/12/winter-wonderland.html

Winter Wonderland

You may remember that last spring, my fellow kindergarten teacher friends and I created an Exploration Room for our kids to visit as an enrichment room. Our first Exploration Room was The Ocean Room. You may view that here, if you wish! :)
Well, we are hard at work again! This time the Exploration Room theme is Winter Wonderland. We are creating this room so that our kids can explore the wonders of winter/the arctic with hands-on activities, through reading, and math manipulative activities!

Dramatic Play Center

                               A Ski Lodge with a restaurant.

plenty of scarves, gloves/mittens, and even ice fairy wings!

Art Center - packed with art supplies!

Craft sticks, cotton balls, cotton swabs, buttons, paint, markers, pencils, colored pencils, paper towel tubes, stencils, stickers, crayons, construction paper, magazines, scissors, and I'm sure I am forgetting something!

The art center also has a large area (with snowy hills) for displaying art work!

This table is between the Writing Center and the Blocks Center. It holds a matching/concentration game with mittens at the moment. (We'll see how long it lasts!)

The Science Center holds a balance, magnifying glasses, consumable science magazines, and magnets.

 The Blocks Area.

Writing Center - complete with pencils, paper, colored pencils, pre-made blank books, scissors, stamps...

 ...and for the boards - chalk, dry-erase markers, and magnets.

The biggest project (which took months of collecting/preparation) was for our Reading Center.

Our milk jug igloo! 

Who wouldn't want to crawl in there and read a book?

(Special thanks to Elizabeth Moss for putting the majority of this together!) 

 Another big project (Thank you Nancy Plyler!) was this amazing 3-D snowman for the Winter Wonderland door! 

3-D all teh way! Plastic carrot nose, real sticks for the arms, and a real scarf! AWESOME!!!

A few more decorations...plenty of snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. 

Gel snowflakes and spray snow on the window.

Kids enjoying the Winter Wonderland Exploration Room! :) 

 Reading Center in the igloo.

 Art Center

 Welcome to the Snowflake Inn!

 Play-doh shapes

Writing center - ice fishing for letters, chalk snow scene drawing, and much more!