Winter Water Table Play!

This time of year I always do a winter unit and include some sort of frozen water play, winter art, winter science and winter drama area.  For the water play my assistant had the idea of filling up a 5 gallon bucket with colored water and placing winter sea animals and polar animals into the water and freezing it over the weekend.  This was a big hit with the kids and lasted over a few days.

We also gave the kids sponges to work the ice down.  They couldn't wait to see what animal they would discover next.

   After a day of sponges we brought in basters and lastly salt.  This science discovery play is a wonderful opportunity for the children to learn about the properties of water!

I'm also working on assessments so I brought in the objectives comparing objects by differences and size with foam snowballs.

It helped that I printed the word small on smaller letters and the word Big on larger letters.  This way the kids knew which basket to sort into for the activity.

 Our state standards require that we have a sand and water table available daily, which limits me on other sensory play. So... I decided to bring in an extra sensory bin for other fun tactile experiences.  This is my rice bin that I placed snowflake confetti and foam snowflakes in for the winter theme.  The kids loved it!

One project we did for art was marshmallow painting.  I read Snowmen at Night first and I used big and small marshmallows so we could work on the comparing objective again :)

Here is a picture of my cold center.  The kids really enjoyed getting dressed up for the cold weather.

Then....I turned it into a Hot Cocoa center!  I posted on this in a previous post, Brrrr baby it's cold outside! but this year I added some new things: New sign, laminated hot cocoa packets, hot cocoa metal tins and boxes, marshmallow jar and peppermint jar.

  

This is one of my favorite times of teaching!  What do you do for your winter theme?