Let it snow! Winter is a great time to cozy up to a delightful picture book, or work on winter word activities with friends and classmates. The activities below will warm up your elementary reading lessons.
Snowman Reading
Cut out 26 snowball shapes. Write one alphabet letter on each snowball so children can stack the snowballs to form words. If your students are older, add snowballs with word families, blends, or plural endings to the mix.
Dolch Word Sentences
Cut out mitten or winter hat shapes. Write Dolch words, common nouns, and verbs on each mitten or hat. Students will use the words to form sentences.
Dolch word lists are frequently used words in books for children. These words are considered sight words since many cannot be sounded out. You can find Dolch word lists at:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art61353.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolch_word_list
http://www.spellingcity.com/dolch-words.html
Wonderful Winter Vocabulary Words
Children can use words from the list below to practice reading skills.
- Alphabetical Order: write some of the words below on index cards. Mix them up. Students can put the words in alphabetical order.
- Sorting: Sort the words below into beginning or ending sound, number of letters, or vowels.
- Word Search: Use the winter vocabulary words to create a word search activity.
- Writing: Use winter words to create sentences or stories.
Here is a list of some common winter vocabulary words:
advent
blanket, blizzard, boots
candle, Chanukah, chilly, chimney, Christmas, coat, cocoa, cold, cozy
December, drafty, dreidel
earmuffs, eggnog, evergreen
February, fireplace, flannel, fleece, freezing, frigid, frosty, frozen
gingerbread, gloves
Hanukkah, hearth, heater, hibernate, holiday, holly, hot chocolate
ice (ice skating, ice crystal, ice hockey), icicle, ivy
jacket, January, joy
Kwanzaa
leggings, lights
mistletoe, mittens, muffler
nativity, New Year, noel, nutcracker
ornament
parka, peppermint, pullover
quilt
reindeer
scarf, shiver, skate, ski, sleet, sleigh, snuggle, solstice, snow (snowball, snowboard, snowfall, snowflake, snowman, snowplow, snowshoe, snow shovel, snowstorm), sugarplum, sweater
tinsel
white, winter, woolens
yule
There are many wonderful books with winter themes to read aloud in front of a warm fire. Two favorite books about winter and snow that I think everyone needs in their collection are available at your local library or on Amazon.com:
Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen (Philomel, October 23, 1987)
The Mitten, by Jan Brett (Putnam Juvenile; REI/CAS edition, October 5, 1989)
