This year, I decided to change up my winter plans and have a Hibernation Day with my virtual kindergarteners! We learned about hibernation and animals in winter all week.
We started by reading some fantastic books about hibernation to learn about different animals and how they sleep through the winter. We read both nonfiction and fiction stories that the kids really enjoyed!
After reading all about these different animals, we compared the fiction and nonfiction stories and made a collaborative Hibernating Animals “Can / Have / Are” chart. Then, we practiced making inferences with a “Who is Hibernating?” game. I shared my screen via Microsoft Teams with my virtual kindergarteners and let them raise their hand to make an inference on who would be hibernating and where they might be hibernating based on the pictures.
During our centers this week, we also played some sight word games like “Where is Bear?” on our computers. In small groups, I shared my screen and gave students control of my screen so they could move the caves around and take turns guessing sight words until someone found the hiding hibernating bear! This was a big hit!
We also played Hibernation Digital Escape – digital escape games have been a huge hit this year in cyber! We worked in small groups to practice some math patterning skills, building sentences, counting on from larger numbers, and more!
We ended our week of learning with a Hibernation Day – something that I will definitely be doing again! The whole class joined me in a cave, burrow, or their own comfy spot to hibernate and do some relaxing activities that day. Children build pillow forts, used blankets as a burrow, or hid under a table as a cave! It was SO much fun!
Below is the note I sent to families in an email. Feel free to copy it to use with your class! They joined me with a stuffed animal and we all wore comfy clothes!
We shared our stuffed animals, and tried “Bear Breathing” from Go Noodle to practice breathing really slowly. Then, we read Bear Snores On and pretended to snore like bear. It was a hoot! Last, we had to wake from our hibernation and do a scavenger hunt that tied in with our math learning. Students had to find one item that was heavier than their stuffed animal. We all hurried back to share our items and the kids explained why / how they knew their item was heavier.
If you’d like a NO PREP Digital Hibernation Pack to try your own day of learning, click the picture below for the link to my resource! Happy Hibernating!
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