After we returned from the Thanksgiving break, PreK-4 students used our changing environment and weather to study the arrival of winter in Chinese. First, everyone did observational drawings of trees found outside of the bay windows in the dining room and compared them with those they drew of the fall foliage. Our sharp observers noticed that the trees no longer have leaves on them (没有 – don’t have), the colors of winter landscape consists of brown and green (咖啡色和绿色), and gone are the golden colors of fall (红色，橙色和黄色). Thanks to a well timed snow storm, everyone was excited to note that during winter trees are peppered with white snow (白雪). Next the class set to transform the fall foliage tree they created in the hallway into a winter landscape. They dropped the leaves to the ground (往下), created winter trees of brown and green – some dabbled with white snow, drew various forms with snow storms (大雪， 小雪 – big snow, small snow), and created lots of snowman (雪人) with body parts! Happy winter break everyone!