Winter Explorers

Looking for Signs of Winter

While discussing winter during circle time children shared their knowledge:

• winter is cold

• it snows in the winter

• we can make snowmen

• we can go sledding in the snow

• we have to wear warm clothes

We learned that in the winter it is cold and cold can change things. It changes the way we dress, the way the trees look, the way animals behave and the way we play outside. To see it for ourselves, we went outside to look for signs of winter…

Winter sure has changed the way the trees look.

Children: “Look morah, there’s no leaves on the trees.” “I see bare trees everywhere.” “They look like giant sticks.” “It’s cold out here.”

Child: “I found ice!” “I want to touch it.” “Why is the ice here?”
Morah: “Remember we talked about how cold can change things. Well this was water before but the cold changed the water and now it is ice. Cold can freeze things and change them into ice.”

 

Children: “Look everybody, I found more ice.” “It’s cold.” “It’s hard.” “My hand is cold now.” “My hand is cold too.” “And wet.” “Let’s look for more ice!”

Child:  “I found ice in the blue car.”

Child:  “There’s more ice here in the red car.”

 Children: “I found more ice!” “There’s ice everywhere!”

Child: “Look, there is a leaf on the ice.”

Morah: “Can you pick it up?”

Child: “I can’t get it, it’s stuck.”

Morah: “Oh, it’s stuck? Remember how cold can freeze things?

That is why the leaf is stuck; it is frozen to the ice.”

 

 Children: “There is ice in this hat.” “I want to see!”

Morah: “Can you pour it out?”

                                    

 Children: “No, it’s not coming out.” “It’s freeze.”

Morah: “That’s right; it’s frozen inside the helmet.”

Later in class during goodbye circle we reviewed what we found and learned during our outdoor experience. We talked about how cold can change water into ice and the differences between

water and ice.

We also experimented with a cup of water.

Can you mix it? YES

Can you pour it? YES

How does it feel? WET

What do you think would happen to the water if we left the cup outside?

• IT WILL SPILL

• IT WILL FREEZE

• IT WILL ICE

• A SQUIRREL WILL DRINK IT

Should we put it outside and find out? YES

 

The next morning we saw that the water changed into ice and we experienced with it.

Can you mix it? NO

Can you pour it? NO

How does it feel? COLD, HARD

What do you think will happen to the ice if we left the cup in our classroom?

• IT WILL FREEZE

• IT WILL SPILL

• SOMEONE WILL EAT THE ICE

After about an hour we checked on the cup and saw that there was no ice in there.

Children: “Now there is water!” “What happened to the ice?”

Morah: “Remember how cold can freeze water and change it into ice. Well in our classroom it is warm and warm can melt frozen things and change ice back into water.”