Snow, Snoow, Snooow, Snoooow!

You can't always count on snow here in Tennessee, but you can always count on some snow in Literacy Launchpad during the month of January. We're in the midst of a chilly, winter unit, and loving every second of it!

For our first week's lesson we read The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats). When I first began teaching Literacy Launchpad, this story was new to most of my students... as far as I could tell. But this year most of my students had heard it prior to me reading it to them. Which is great! But it means I should probably find a new book to use in the future years. Broaden their horizons and all, ya know?

When we read The Snowy Day we get to play in the snow ourselves, like Peter! ... O.K. so it's not real snow, but I kind of think this fake snow might actually be more fun than the real thing. It's at least more fun than the kind of snow we get here in Nashville.

This week we read The Mitten (Jan Brett). Last year we read Brett's The Hat during the month of January. And I was pleasantly surprised this week when I showed The Mitten to one of my classes and one student mistook it for The Hat (the covers look really similar). She got really excited (she remembered The Hat from last year), and proceeded to recap the entire story about Hedgie and all the animals. It was a validating moment for me, it was a great lead-in to The Mitten, and it got all the other students pumped about the story we were about to hear.

Our mitten activity after the story was fun, but I had some students disappointed that they weren't "real" mittens we were making. Hmm... I'm trying to imagine the comedy (or horror) it would be to try to teach preschoolers how to knit. And it would require me to first learn how to knit, which would likely be even more comical!

I joked with classes about making sure they don't let any animals move into their mittens and I had one little girl get really freaked out about that. I had to assure her that I was just being silly, and that there were no bears around here. And certainly none that would be trying to get into her little paper mitten. :)