baby, it's cold outside...

...a fact that we do not take lightly in this house. In honor of making it all the way to the end of January with the thermostat set at 58 degrees (just doesn't seem right to turn up the heat on a poorly insulated house, ya know?), the boys and I have been working on a lot of winter/snow related things during our school time. I haven't taken pics of every activity, but these ones were fun and I happened to have the camera ready. We have:

*made elmer's glue melting snowmen:
*rolled dice and drawn a corresponding # of icicles on a house, roll a dice and build a snowman (both from 2teachingmommies)
*made snowflake observations and snow vs. temperature observations (as they relate to shoveling) and talked about the water cycle (also 2teachingmommies)
*painted winter scenes with white paint. The one time I tried giving them other colors this week, Boy#2 had yellow paint and declared that he was "making yellow snow!" to which his older brother replied, "that's awkward..." Yes, I had a hard time stifling my snort.
*studied a few tracks in the snow and made our own tracks,
*looked at recipes for borax snowflakes (but haven't made them yet)
*read a ridiculous number of winter-themed books, both from my own collection and the library and talked about sequence, character, rhyme, illustrations, etc.,
*counted and traced numbers (boy#1 went on to write the words himself):

*traced pre-writing pages and completed snowflake puzzles from confessionsofahomeschooler.com, (under that page is a letter search sheet. I printed one for each letter of the alphabet, and boy#2 really enjoys placing beads on the designated letters): *worked a lot with starting sounds as they relate to objects one encounters in the winter,
*problem solved how to climb snowballs without falling (answer: shovel steps): and land with style:*pretended we were snowmobile drivers carrying cargo and injured eskimos where it/they need to go:
*decorated and eaten cottage cheese snowmen (I think the flash surprised boy3!), pancakes, and played with sparkly snow playdough,
*and I'm sure there's tons more I've forgotten.

BTW, I've seen other blogs post about what their youngest is doing while the olders are schooling, so I thought I'd copy that idea. Boy #3 would like to be a part of every single blasted thing we do, so once the songs and fingerplays and weather is done and the older 2 begin their bin work, he tries his level best to be as entertaining as possible in hopes they'll sneak away and join him. You've already seen him drawing on the mirror, we also have fun sliding popsicle sticks into the opening on a travel mug, rearranging my silverware drawer:*role-playing as Davey Crockett chasing down a bear (or maybe he's a raccoon and Davey is off camera chasing him? Not sure. Either way there was a lot of screeching and growling.)
*emptying the laundry baskets and filling them again,
*eating everything in sight...you get the picture. Normal toddler stuff ;-p

PHEW, no wonder I'm tired at the end of the day. Here's hoping for an early spring.