Are you stumped about finding some perfect, wintertime classroom activities that will keep your kids stimulated through the cold winter months?
It’s a January-February conundrum for most educators, but with a little creativity, some classroom activities lend themselves perfectly to those cold, recess-less days. To point you in the right direction (NOT toward the North or South Poles), today on TeachHUB.com, our regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday contributor Janelle Cox, herself a veteran teacher in Upstate New York, looks at some of the ways that the animal activity of hibernation can lend itself naturally toward classroom activities.
Janelle’s mammal-inspired classroom activities include:
- Bear-ing the Cold
- Freezing Food
- And More!
Janelle sums up her article by recommending you hold a hibernation day in your class: “To end your unit on hibernation, have a class hibernation day! Tell students just as the animals reserve time in the winter to slow down and rest, they too will have a special day of hibernation. On this day encourage students to bring in their sleeping bags and pillows. Assign each student to bring in a special snack as well as a favorite “quiet” game, book, or puzzle. Then, on this day, allow students to find a space in the classroom to build their “nest” and quietly hibernate with their games, books, and puzzles. Younger students can put their heads down for a winter nap.
What classroom activities do you teach your students about hibernation? Do you have any fun, new ideas that you would like to share?
Classroom Games: Winter Brain Breaks
It’s been universally proven that brain breaks, or brief intermissions from coursework often involving physical activity, are great ways to split up a day and are beneficial on the mental front too.
During the winter, like now, in many parts of the world, when freezing conditions make activities like recess impossible, brain breaks are even more crucial to the academic process.
Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, also a licensed educator, sings the praises of brain breaks this time of year, and outlines some great ideas for classroom games that can serve as brain breaks, including:
• Snowball Fight
• Winter-Themed Yoga Poses
• And More!
All in all, Janelle notes that, “The best way to deal with the student wiggles in the wintertime is to just get your kids up and moving. As soon as you do that you will find that extra pent up energy that they all have will just melt away.”
Do you have any fun winter brain break ideas that students love in your classroom?
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