Meaningful Literacy Experiences - Winter Style!

Jan Brett's The Hat

This horse is wishing for a "hat" like Hedgie's.

He can find one on the clothesline!

Hedgie laughs and says, "Don't they know that animals should never wear clothes?"

Denise Fleming's The First Day of Winter

Predicting (our focus during the month of January) what snowman accessories are hidden under the sheet.

... Then dressing up like silly snowmen!

Other Fun

Writing a letter for The Jolly Christmas Postman (Allen and Janet Ahlberg) to deliver!

Enjoying some good books by the fire during the month of December.

I can read with my rebus reader!

Digging for the alphabet!

Snowman Stories. Goodbye winter... unit.

Couldn't pick which snowman story I wanted to read this week, so I brought both of the two I was debating to class with me. We read All You Need For A Snowman (Alice Schertle) and Snowmen at Night (Carolyn Buehler).

I must say, it doesn't feel much like winter around here lately. We've been having thunderstorms and 50/60 degree weather. Anybody else? So it kind of felt weird to be reading about snowmen, but it was fun nonetheless.

So it was more snowy fun in Literacy Launchpad. The students were thrilled; they had such a ball with the snow last week. I had a tough act to follow.

I think they enjoyed the story and our own snowman making! See for yourself!

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. :)

The First Day of Winter Lesson

Photo by MGShelton

I am such a fan of Denise Fleming's work, that every turn of the page makes me giddy when I'm using one of her stories for a read-aloud. Her depiction in The First Day of Winter of the start of the winter season makes me long for snow... and I hate snow... really hate snow! That's how good she is! If you haven't read The First Day of Winter yet, go pick it up at your library. Or you can purchase it at the Literacy Launchpad Store. This book was the center of yesterday's lesson and activities. Our focus this month has been predicting.

During yesterday's read-aloud, the children helped me with a calendar activity that allowed us to practice predicting. I love letting them interact with the story as I read it. Although, depending on the group, the interaction with the story can sometimes be distracting to the actual story itself. We had a little bit of that going on yesterday. I think next time, I might do the calendar activity after the story, and use it to enhance our discussion.


After our story we had a great discussion about winter and snowmen. It was interesting to hear the children's thoughts about winter. Many of them didn't think it was winter here right now. I'm guessing that has to do with the fact that we hardly ever get snow 'round these parts. I wonder if their responses would have differed if we actually had snow on the ground. Hmm... perhaps I need to bring in some books about what winter looks like in various parts of the country, or the world, and go into more depth on that (if only our classes were a little longer)?

When I asked one of my groups where the snowman was going at the end of the story, one little girls told me, "to the winter." Another little boy told me, "to the North Pole."

And when I asked them why the boy's friend in the story gave him all those items that we saw, one little boy told me, "so he could put them on his snowman to protect him so he wouldn't melt."


Since the focus of this lesson was predicting, we also played a predicting game which involved building our own snowman (after we had some predicting fun)! After I hit some snags with this activity with the first group of children, I changed it up a bit for the next couple of groups, and it was awesome. We had so much fun! Lots of giggles and laughs. These kids crack me up!







Oh, and by the way... my detailed plans for each of the original activities and games I do with my students will soon be available for you to purchase (a la carte style) and use with your own readers!