Over and Under the Snow Book Companion January Preschool Kindergarten Special Ed

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same book every day at circle time: some animals spend winter OVER

the snow — a fox, an owl, a deer — and some spend it UNDER the snow, in a den or a burrow — a mouse,

a bear. After the read-aloud each day, pull one simple activity: sort who lives under the snow and

who lives over it, count paw prints, find the letter O, a cold-weather life skill in order, then

build a snow-hill craft with animals glued above the snow line and inside a tunnel below it. Every

student page has one short instruction with a picture, so a paraprofessional can run the room from

it too.

This week pairs with **Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner** (or any book about animals and

winter you already have). Not affiliated with the author or publisher. You need your own copy of

the book; nothing from it is reproduced here, and every picture in the file is our own drawing or a

licensed picture set, not the book's artwork.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (57 pages)

• 1 Start Here week plan: what to do after the read-aloud each day, plus what else it practices
• 1 book-and-words page naming the read-aloud, an original circle-time chant ("Over and Under,"

written for this unit — no song or story text is reprinted), and the 9 circle-time vocabulary

words

• 9 smartboard slides for whole-group circle time on a projector or interactive board: the cover

art, name the pictures, sort, count (3 slides), the letter hunt, the life skill in order, and the

core word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (snow, tree, star, fox, owl, deer,

rabbit, mouse, bear)

• Day 1, Sort (does it live under the snow, or over it?), at 3 levels: Level 1 errorless matching,

Level 2 the standard two-group sort, Level 3 a third group added (under the snow, over the snow,

or not an animal) — 10 cut-and-glue pieces on every level

• Day 2, Count the paw prints, at 3 levels: Levels 1 and 2 count sets of 1 to 5 with a 5-piece

numeral strip to cut and glue; Level 3 counts sets of 6 to 10 and writes the number, no cutting

• Day 3, Letter O, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching O's, Level 2 finds O among 10 look-alike

letters, Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start like "owl"

• Writing, at 3 levels: Level 1 traces the big letters, Level 2 traces letters and the word "owl,"

Level 3 writes the letters and the word independently on primary lines

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page: 5 picture pieces (4 real cold-weather steps — look outside,

put on a coat, put on mittens, build a snowman — first/next/then/last, plus 1 that does not

belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a snow hill in cross-section (a big snow mound with a dashed

snow line and a hollow tunnel) plus 10 glue-on pieces — a star, a little tree, a fox, an owl, a

deer, a rabbit, a mouse, a bear and two snowflakes — every cut a straight dashed rectangle — and

glue the over-the-snow animals above the line, the under-the-snow animals inside the tunnel, onto

an open winter-sky scene

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (4 dashed paths from a fox to a tree: straight, wave,

zigzag, loops) and a cutting-practice page (4 strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "under": a big word card for the talker or core

board, a 12-word find-and-circle grid (6 of the 12 are the target word "under"), a snowman to

color, and 10 animals to cut out and glue around it

• 1 "Who Did What This Week" data page (one row per student, a prompt-level code for each day —

handy for IEP notes and progress reports)

• 1 family letter to send home on Day 1
• 1 credits page (art and font licenses)
• Ink-saver twins of 19 picture-based student pages (the craft and pure-coloring pages are

color-only) in outline art for a photocopier, so the color pages above are optional, not required

Three Levels On Every Academic Task

Sort, count, letters and writing each come in three levels, marked with a small shape instead of

a number so children don't compare theirs to a neighbor's: a circle for starting (errorless

matching), a square for building (the standard task), a triangle for ready for more (a real step

up — a third sort group, counting 6 to 10 with writing, or beginning sounds).

Cutting Built For Small Hands

Every cutting page carries 5 or more pieces, lined up edge to edge so each cut is one straight

line. Pre-cut them yourself for students who are not cutting independently yet.

Color Or Ink-Saver

Print the color pages, or use the ink-saver twins at the back on a photocopier — most

picture-based student pages have both (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only by design).

Who This Is For

Any teacher starting a self-contained preschool or early childhood special education classroom

who wants a whole week of circle time, ready to pull and go: one theme, a different simple

activity every day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around a winter-wildlife, over-the-snow-and-under-it theme.

It is not a claim about any student's age or rate of progress, and it does not reproduce any book,

its text, or its artwork — only our own hill, tunnel, fox, owl, deer, rabbit, mouse and bear pieces

are drawn here. The animal examples used to sort "under the snow" and "over the snow" are a simple

classroom sorting activity, not a scientific or clinical claim.