Idea swap.

Fun winter activities, teaching tips, and more from classrooms like yours:

Reading Gloves

Dianne Meyr, of Cape Girardeau, MO, shares her warm idea for teaching story elements: To teach the five "W"s of reading--what, who, why, where, and when--I purchased some colorful, stretchy gloves. On each finger, I glued a tiny reminder of each "W" question. The "who" was a small boy and girl, the "where" was a house, the "when" was a clock, the "what" was a newspaper, and the "why" was a question mark. I have students put on the fun gloves as they retell the main elements of the story.

Fun With Frost

Harris Dollinger, Yonkers, NY, teaches Robert Frost during the snowy season: When there is snow in the forecast, I like to read Susan Jeffers' picture-book version of Robert Frost's Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening (Dutton Juvenile, 2001). I start by asking children how they feel when they see the snow falling. Then I introduce the book and focus on the illustrations, teaching some of the unusual vocabulary like harness, queer, and downy. After reading, I ask students to find another winter poem to illustrate and share with the class.

Head Start on Geometry

Nancy Karpyk of Weirton, WV, gives her class an early taste of high-level math: My husband's chemistry students visit my kindergarten class a few times each year to do experiments together. Both the Weir High students and the Weirton Heights Elementary children really enjoy the experiences. During one visit, the high-school students used a Hoberman (a colorful, collapsible sphere) to give my students a fun, hands-on introduction to some geometry concepts. I hope that as the children start learning more complicated math, they'll remember the material they learned in my class!

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Valentine Wreaths

Linda Brooks of Lafayette, GA, makes festive wreaths using candy hearts and rhymes: First, I have students fold a square piece of red paper into a triangle three times, and then cut the base of the triangle (which will have no folded edges) into a semi-circle. The result is a pretty heart-shaped Valentine wreath. Next, children glue a candy conversation heart to each heart in the wreath. I encourage them to write a Valentine saying or rhyme using the message on the conversation heart as inspiration. Finally, I display the wreaths where students can read each other's sayings.

Glue Snowmen

Elizabeth Horner, of Willingboro, NJ, has her students explore liquids and solids with this fun snowman activity: "Can we change a liquid into a solid without a freezer?" I asked my students as we began our unit on states of matter. They were doubtful, yet curious. Then I handed out bottles of school glue. First, we examined the glue for its physical properties. Then, using wax paper, we squirted three blobs in the shape of a snowman. We added a tiny hat cut from construction paper, eyes, a nose and paper buttons down the front. The glue took a few days to dry. Finally, we peeled our snowmen gently off the waxed paper and glued a magnet on the back. We had successfully changed a liquid into a solid without even going near a freezer! It was the perfect integration of art and science.

Renovation Magic

Beverly Clark, from Nashville, TN, found a creative way to recycle old ceiling tiles: During our recent school renovation, many items were tossed including a pile of ceiling tiles. A colleague and I decided to paint scenes from books on the tiles and hang them in place of a few of the new ones. The students each painted a scene from a favorite book on a tile. They were proud of their creations and more motivated to read as a result. Plus: Their work brightens the room every day.

Groundhog Math

Jeffrey Kuntz, fifth-grade teacher in Punxsutawney, PA, shares groundhog math problems: If the long winter is getting you down, take students on a trek to Punxsutawney, PA, for the official Groundhog Day weather prognostication (you may have to teach them this fancy word for "forecast" first). Tell them the first trek to Gobbler's Knob, the prognostication site, happened on February 2, 1887. How many years ago was that? Gobbler's Knob is 3/4 of a mile from the downtown area. How many feet is that? If Groundhog Headquarters is open on Groundhog Day from 6:00 AM until 7:00 PM, how many hours is the store open? How many minutes? How many seconds?

Hands-On Science

Stacey Brooks, of Highland, NY, uses hands-on projects to get kids focused on science: My inter-aged students learn about surface tension by measuring how many drops of liquid can be contained on the surface of a coin. Doing experiments like this gets them motivated to learn. You can see it in their facial and physical focus and interest.

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What Painting Are You?

Mindy Hardwick, writing consultant for grades 4-8, uses art to teach about character: I explain three styles of painting to my students--Impressionist, Romantic Landscape, and Surrealist (you can find definitions of these styles and examples of each at www.wikipedia.org). As I explain each type of painting, I ask students to think about each as a comparison tool for a character in a novel or short story. It's a question we come back to in discussing what we're reading: What type of painting would the character be? Why? What clues from the text lead you to your response?

Snow Globe Writing

Kate Reich of Madison, WI, has students make their own snow globes as a story starter: For this midwinter writing treat, I have students choose a backdrop for a snow globe using photographs or illustrations from old magazines. They glue the background on a piece of white paper. Then we make "snow" with a paper punch and recycled paper. The children sandwich their snow and background with a circle cut from transparency paper--the "globe"--and draw a base at the bottom. I ask them to imagine what is going on in the snowy scenes they've created and write about it.

Family Contact Organizer

Sue Rohm, first-grade teacher in Portland, OR, keeps family contact info organized: To document phone conversations with families, I make a 3" X 5" card for each child. It includes their name, address, phone numbers, and family members' names. I keep the cards in a file box. I grab my box when I go to the phone and jot the date and topic of conversation on the card each time. It makes it easy to keep organized. I also put substitutes' business cards in the front. I love having all of my phone numbers in one place!

Vacation Learning

When kids miss school for vacation, Cherie Levy, from Middleton, WI, makes the most of it: Since I believe children learn so much outside the classroom, and because, inevitably, many children ask to be excused during the school year for a family vacation, I try to maximize the learning situation. Besides having the missed work organized and ready for the child, I always supply the child with a disposable camera. That way, the child can take pictures of the sites they visit, and once developed, we can use the pictures as great learning tools in the classroom. I have the child talk about where he or she visited, and then we save the photos for state or country projects. The children are so proud to be able to share a piece of their vacation memories!

Musical Fractions

Marcia Bjerregaard, a retired teacher from Crawfordville, FL, incorporates music with fractions: To teach my students fractions, we composed songs using xylophones. Each measure was a "whole" and could be divided any way the composer chose, but all the measures had to be equal. The first time, I limited the smallest "fractions" to quarter notes. Some chose three beats per measure and some chose four. From there, we moved on to some simple math. They could check their work by counting the number of quarter notes, or their equivalent, in each measure, and entered the "code" after the clef sign. We used xylophones throughout the rest of the year for composer free-time use.

Algebra Snowball Fight 

Sherry Bisson lets her middle-schoolers in Rogers City, MI, loose with a snowball fight--that's tied to her lessons: Each student is given a sheet of paper with an equation on it. Students crinkle the paper into a ball and toss the balls at each other, having a "snowball fight." When I call for an end (usually after 30-40 seconds), students pick the snowball closest to them and solve the equation written on the sheet. Once the students have solved the equations, they get into numerical order according to their answers, without verbal communication. This lesson is great because it highlights both teamwork and the topic at hand.

* WIN * A set of books from National Geographic. See page 59.

RELATED ARTICLE: Cat in the Classroom

I decided to expand this craft project into a theme unit on cats. The kids wrote about how they created their cats, including each step and the materials used. We performed cat math by using the number of toes cats have in equations. In science, we studied different types of cats and their habitats and even made dioramas for our cats to live in.

--Richard Flowers, first-grade teacher.

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