Hot and cold

by Gill Taylor
(Brisbane, Australia)

Living in Australia, we are asked not to celebrate Christmas too soon. We break up on 10th Dec so celebrations are only meant to be the week before.

I get around this by investigating hot and cold places. Start with Arctic and Antarctic, this lets us study snow, ice etc. We make snowflakes, freeze an ice hand and watch it melt etc. I make an ice land role play area with sheer white drapes and crepe paper icicles. The children wear scarves and gloves.

We then talk about hot and cold Christmas. We make Christmas trees which are really 'pine trees' for cold weather climates! Later we move on to hot Christmas and talk about sun safety.

Finally we turn ice land into Santas workshop in the North Pole and children write their letter etc from there.
Hope you find this useful.