cracking nuts

Nut cracking is the thing to do around here lately!

Not only do the almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts taste delish,
but their shells split open with a satisfying "CRACK!"

Unlike apple slicing and lemon juicing,
there aren't a lot of steps,
so even the littlest ones are able to take a turn.

All you really need is a little elbow grease!



The materials:

a dish for holding the nuts
a nutcracker {I've seen them at thrift stores, too.}
a dish for serving the nuts
a crumber for sweeping up broken shells
an assortment of nuts
{Before doing this lesson, we made sure NO children had nut allergies.}

Because it's a food lesson,
the child washes his hands and puts on an apron.
Then, he chooses 4 nuts from a basket near the lesson on the shelf.
{There's a little sign on the basket that says "4."}
He sets his materials up on a mat and starts cracking!
The meat the child picks out of the shells is placed in a dish.
After the child has cracked all 4 nuts, he sweeps up the shells,
and puts the lesson back on the shelf.

At this point, the child can either serve the nuts to the other children,
or eat them himself.
The older children tend to choose serving,
and the younger children tend to gobble the nuts up themselves!
{This is slowly starting to change as they discover
the joy of sharing food, though!}

a penguin experiment

The idea for this experiment came from Chelsea
over at Preschool - What fun we have!

Do you ever imagine
diving into an icy ocean like a penguin?
{AND staying warm and toasty?}

Personally, my fantasies tend to be more on the sunny beach side...
but, the children in my classroom have a special place
in their hearts for arctic mammals
{like penguins, polar bears, and seals}
so we decided to give Chelsea's experiment a try.

First, we plunged our bare hands into a tub of ice water.
{No one was able to keep their hands in long enough for a photo!}

Then, we put on rubber gloves
and gooped our hands up with A LOT of animal fat.
{The gloves saved us all from a seriously huge mess!}

With the fat caked on our hands,
the icy water suddenly felt much warmer...
almost tropical, really.

Not only was it a fun sensory experience,
the children made their own meaningful connections
between fat and warmth.
{I barely said a word!}

hello friends!

What started out as a small blogging break,
quickly turned into a looooooooong holiday/crafty/lazy hiatus!
I've missed you!!!

Here's a little peek at my biggest distraction...

Yes, it's a sweater! {My first sweater, FYI.} AND, it was knit on size 4 needles. I can't even begin to explain how much time I've obsessively devoted this project. {It's my biggest excuse for not blogging.}

Anyway, the children are back at school this week. {It's been so busy, I've barely taken any pictures!} Busy AND cold. Today is warmer, but below zero weather kept us cooped up inside for most of the week.

Since we couldn't go outside to play in the fresh snow, we brought the snow inside!

I'd seen this on other blogs, and had always thought,
Bringing tubs of snow inside is cute and all, but it's not for us tough Montanans.
If real Montana kids want to play in the snow, they get bundled up and go OUTSIDE!

Anyway, playing with snow inside turned out to be a HUGE hit!

In hindsight, I should have filled bigger tubs,
but I had no idea that EVERYONE would want to get in on the action!

As a solution, the children ended up scooping the snow
onto their own trays.

Overall, it was a delightfully wet and wild experience.
{Thankfully, most of the kids chipped in on the mop-up!}

Happy Friday, everyone!
Enjoy your weekend! Here's where I'll be! :)

oh baby...

...it's cold outside!

Yes, that thermometer says -10 F, and it's not measuring the windchill.
brrrrrr....

We have been a bit stir crazy around here, if you can imagine.
{It's supposed to be colder tomorrow, too.}

To blow off steam, we've been doing some Brain Gym exercises.
I'm not even close to being an expert on Brain Gym,
but I do know that it's healthy for your brain
to do activities where you cross the midline of your body.
{The children love doing them, too!}

This one is called cross crawl.
Lift your knee and reach across
to touch it with your opposite hand.
Repeat with your other knee and hand...
almost like you're walking in place.
Want to make it more challenging?
Try doing it with your eyes shut!

This one is called hook ups,
but we call it the pretzel.
Put the backs of your hands together.
Then, reach your right hand over your left
and lock your fingers together.
Bend your elbows and twist your hands up against your chest.
More challenge?
Cross your legs, too!

It's perfect to do at line time
because it improves your concentration.
I always tell children they can put their hands
in their laps, on their knees, or in the pretzel.
They usually choose the pretzel. :)

I added a weather widget to the right column of the blog,
so you can see just how cold we are!
Right now, it says -29 F.
Yikes!
Frost is growing on our bedroom wall...

busy hands

lacing a construction paper stocking

ta da!

numerals and counters
{holiday edition}

pouring red and green rice

poking holes with a corn cob holder

constructing a maze
{with the red rods}

carefully walking out of the maze
{Ring the bell when you get to the center!}

sweeping sequins
These little shimmery disks get spilled A LOT!
{Good thing they're fun to pick up!}