Rowing :: Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

The boys and I spent the last two weeks with Robert Frost's poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. It was a sweet book, beautiful illustrations, we all really enjoyed it. I had planned this row to go for two weeks then I looked in the manual to find that this is a review unit and there wasn't much in the manual as far as new lessons go. Eeeep. Lucky for me at the time I was doing my prep work and planning Carissa and Jolanthe posted some winter packs that would fit perfectly! Saved the day! So we also added Jan Brett's The Mitten. It all worked out perfectly!

Centers :: 


I mentioned last week that I made some changes to our morning. The major change is the time the boys spend in the "front room" alone working on centers. I've tried to plan centers with our row in mind. The first week of this row we had peppermint scented playdough with silver glitter. This was a huge hit. They both loved it and the room smelled so good when they were playing.

The second week I had purchased Insta-Snow Powder and made a tub-full. This was another huge hit.

There were other activities in the centers; 3-letter word puzzles, our animal classification cards/pockets, snowflake pattern strips, first sounds wheel, the iPad games, etc. But the snow and the playdough were the most popular.

Seatwork :: You Can Read (a, and, see, the and I, can, me, you) and Printables

During Christmas break while I was doing some planning I found Carissa's You Can Read program. It was just what I was looking for to do with #3 but I thought #4 would benefit as well as we work through the lessons. I worked parts of the first unit into each day's school work and the boys really did great with it. #4 liked the connect the word to make a shape page. Both boys liked the bingo and the word finds. #3 didn't love the coloring pages (color by number or tracing/coloring) as much but I saw some improvement in the words through the weeks.

Crafts ::

I can't remember where I found the puffy snowflake (link below) idea but it was a fun craft. I think they would have turned out really puffy but I forgot they were on top of the cabinet drying when I put our tub of snow on top of them for the whole week. They boys still like them and they would've gotten smooshed in the keepsake binder anyway.

Feeding the Birds ::

Other ways to enjoy the book ::


I found some YouTube videos of the poem being "preformed" that I thought the kids would enjoy.

A Muppet version of the poem (thanks, Michelle) ::

And a lego version ::

Links ::
Homeschool Creations :: snowy day printables
1plus1plus1equals1 :: I used the Mitten story props but she has a whole post on winter themes!
I can teach my child :: puffy snowflakes

Natural Kids :: birdseed cakes
Delightful Learning :: of course...love her rows!
Homeschool Share :: here are all their resources for this row, I used the animal track worksheet
Homeschool Share :: animal classification (found this from Michelle's link)

Linking to ::