This month at RisingOaks Early Learning | Saint John Paul II, we welcomed lots of snowy fun as our preschoolers explored winter play both outside and inside. The children delighted in making a snowman and snow angels on the ground. They also enjoyed pulling their peers in toboggans, filling the toboggans and buckets with snow, sledding, and building a snow castle and snowballs with a snowball maker. The group also engaged in imaginative play, pretending to row a boat and teeter-tottering while wiggling the toboggan or their bodies. To extend their joy indoors, I introduced a snowman-building activity using various shaped pieces with pictures I prepared—brooms, hats, carrots, corncobs, bananas, rubber gloves, and flowers. Before we began, we talked about Frosty the Snowman: what he looks like and the body parts he might have. The preschoolers then created snowmen in their own styles, choosing their preferred shapes and pieces. They added buttons, flower shapes, coal, candies, a corn, chestnuts, and bananas for eyes and eyebrows, a nose, arms, and even ears after placing a hat on the snowman’s head. They demonstrated their spatial awareness and coordination as they assembled the features and arranged the pieces. In the afternoon, the children depicted a melted snowman using white paint and cut-paper shapes on a black background, eagerly participating and thoroughly enjoying the activity. This experience helped them develop a range of learning skills: fine motor control through manipulating small pieces, painting, and assembling features; spatial awareness and hand–eye coordination as they placed parts on the face and body; creativity and self-expression as they designed snowmen in unique styles; and language and social interaction as they talked about their ideas and shared their plans with peers.
