We have been having a lot of fun with our winter Five in a Row unit and book studies! Hey, I figure, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! Our winters get colder every year so we may as well get as much enjoyment out of it as we can.

Since Stopping by Woods is a fairly short poem, this was a fairly simple row. We spent about a week on the activities and projects.

Stopping By Woods

Five in a Row for Winter

We read lots of other books with this study! We focused our reading around animals in winter and learned about hibernation, migration and adaptation (for those animals which stick around through the winter).

Homeschool Share has a lapbook for Stopping by Woods, but we didn’t use it this time. We had a little focus on rhyming words (which made me realize it’s something we need to work on a bit!) as we read a few other Robert Frost poems and picked out the words that sounded the same.

We used a few printables for games and classifying animals based on what they do in the winter (printables from First Grade and Fabulous).

National Geographic did a great show (a loooooooong time ago :D) on where animals go in winter:

There is also a Wild Kratts episode about animals that hibernate, migrate and adapt to winter conditions.

Keekers made a poster on animals on where animals go in winter.

We also identified different animal tracks, matching the animals to their footprints in the snow.

Tracks in the Snow was a perfect book to read along with!

Then we made our own “footprints in the snow” in play doh :0)

Miss E’s sensory bin was filled with bird seed this week. We buried different animals and tracks in the bin and matched them up.

Then we made toilet paper roll bird feeders for our winter chickadees.

It’s really easy, but a bit messy. Just cover the toilet paper roll with peanut butter, roll in the bird seed, punch holes for handles and hang with pipe cleaners.

I had a few different art projects planned, but we only got to two of them – one was a watercolor and tape resist, but since I used the wrong kind of tape (use masking tape!) I kind of ruined it. Better luck next time!

I had forgotten how much fun puffy paint is! We mixed equal amounts white glue and shaving cream together to make it, then painted snowflakes and covered them in glitter. It stays puffy after it dries!

Our birds and trees layered art project was a big success also! Since I have a couple art rebels on my hands, I let them have a bit of liberty in deciding how they wanted to do their trees. The Boy followed the rules (first born! so typical :D) and painted his birch trees separately, while JJ and Keekers opted to paint theirs ON the paper (it’s called “layered” guys, help me out here! lol).

We had pre-painted some white paper with watercolors to cut our birds out of and place them on the trees on the background.

I quite like the finished products! We have some good artists on our hands.

At the end of our week we went downtown to High Park for a nature walk with a guide. He took us through parts of the park and helped us make observations for where animals might be hibernating, or looking for signs of animals that had been there recently.

Spot the squirrel!

Rabbit wuz here

He taught the kids the sound of a Great Horned Owl’s call – “Who is awake, me too!”, and what a mating female squirrel sounds like – supposedly a duck-like sound :D

We learned that racoons waddle, not walk,

and played a game about how small birds survive the winter – shiver, shelter share!

Do you know what animals hibernate in a log?

Our science and nature lover in his element :0)

Daddy and Miss E were able to be there for a bit – mommy forgot her mitts! But Grandma came to the rescue.

Scouting out a cardinal.

My favourite activity? Feeding black capped chickadees! Though they weren’t over cooperative at High Park, we’ve been able to feed them at the conservation park near our house. It’s such a fun experience!