Winter Cuisenaire Templates

 As part of trying to incorporate hands on math activities, I have been making Cuisenaire Rod Templates. Archer always enjoys matching the rods and then really enjoys counting up each color at the end. These are some wintery templates I made.

There are color and black and white versions of the four images.

Print the Winter Cuisenaire Templates Here

You might also like my other Winter Resources

3 Year Old Pre-K Winter Activities

While we are slowly working our way through some purchased curriculum this year, I decided to also add in some themed activities that either go with the seasons/holidays or go with Archer's interests. Here are some of our Winter Themed Activities

This tray had some pipe cleaners and some "winter" colored beads. He put the beads on to make a snowflake.

A tray with some pom poms and trucks. Not a hit last year, but this year he played with it.

The Snowman Soup Math activity was a big hit. He liked mixing up the ingredients and then we worked on adding them up together.

I set out this tray with various magna-tiles and some winter Toob animals and asked him to make some little houses for the animals. At first he stuck to mostly cubes, but I challenged him to use some of the other pieces too and he eventually branched out.

I found this cute little Penguin Emotions activity from Natural Beach Living. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well he matched up the emotions.

I got this cute little set of snowman accessories to use with playdough. There were enough that I thought about using them for math activities, but I never did get around to it. They were a big hit, though, especially the little hats.

He also had fun making playdough homes and tracks with his Arctic Toob.

I got out his seasons layers puzzle too. Now we did all of them, not just winter.

Of course, I got out all our winter books. Some he read, most he didn't (he's really into reading books with maps or flags right now and it's hard to deter him).

Check out other Winter Themed Ideas and Materials:

Snowman Soup Math Activity

Winter has hit our hometown in full force! We're running with it and doing some fun winter themed activities. Here is a Snowman Soup Math Activity we did recently.

I made recipe cards with different snowman "ingredients" and gave him a pot and spoon.

He followed the recipes by counting out each ingredient into the pot. For added challenge, we then worked on adding up all the ingredients on the recipe cards.

Print the Snowman Soup Math Activity Here

 

Winter Theme Activities

We're still taking a break from our Alphabet Themes to do some theme weeks. This week we did a winter theme. Now, I will say that Archer is definitely his own person and I do not force him into activities. Frustratingly, there were many activities with which I presented him that he did not feel like doing. Therefore, our activities feel a little more abbreviated than what I had planned.

As always, the shelf by his desk had some books for the week and I hung his artwork above. He has been very closed to reading "new" books, so we only read The Little Snowplow, Just a Snowman and Snowball Soup. Hoping to read some of the other great books next year!

I made a sensory bin with epsom salt, acrylic snowflakes and the penguins Toob.

I also got a big bin of snow from outside for him. I gave him cups of liquid water colors and some twisty droppers. He mostly preferred dumping water between all the cups. 

Don't Break the Ice with random words written on them with overhead marker.

Playing Little Cooperation and getting the animals safely to the igloo. I think this is currently his favorite board game.

Button art tray. He will do a couple of pages, but then looses interest. I think it might be too easy for him.

Snowflake and snowman stickers.

"Snow" painting. I gave him white and silver glitter paint, a cotton ball on a clothes pin, a q-tip and a porcupine ring. For a kid who dislikes arts and crafts, he lasted longer than I thought he would!

We did play dough a couple of different ways. I had one tray with glass gems and snowflake cookie cutters. A different day I got his shape stamps.

I got out several winter sentence cards I had made back when my oldest was a toddler. He had to put the words in order to make a sentence. This was the first time I showed Archer this kind of activity and he really liked it.

Failed snowplow tray. Archer was very very offended I used his diggers in this way and immediately took them out of the tray and put them back with his other vehicles.

Drawing a number and then putting that many beads onto a pipe cleaner. He did well but lost interest after about 3 numbers.

Winter 12 piece puzzle (he does these on his own now).

Arctic Vocabulary Cards to go with his Arctic Toob.

To go with his Dimensions Math, we did a Rough and Smooth sort.

Playing with his place value blocks.

Magna-Qubix were big this week. He played for hours!