Snowy Day Stuff

It's snowing today in Geneva... a lot.  W'eve probably accumulated four to five inches so far and there's no sign if it slowing.  It's our first big snow since we moved!  The fur kids are enjoying watching it.  They both seem to be mesmerized, having only seen snow once.  So, in light of my current weather conditions, I've decided to post a lot of snow related activities that I've come across recently.  I know I usually tackled snow by the end of January, so sorry if you've already had your frosty fun!  Click the links or pictures to go to check out the resources.


Snow Cream

I seem to always think of food first.  Oh Paula Deen!  I think I gain weight just watching her cook, but I still love her.  Making snow cream (ice cream made from snow) is something I've only done a couple times.  It's a fun activity, but you have to have snow to do it... or shaved ice.  Here's Paula's recipe and guess what?  There isn't butter in it!  Wow.  I found it on foodnetwork.com   You could turn this into a fun math/flow chart activity.

Ingredients: 

8 cups of snow (or shaved ice)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients and then serve immediately.  

This recipe makes 8-10 servings.

Snowy Books to Read

Click on the picture to go to Amazon and check them out.

         

Snow Videos to Watch

This is a very relaxing video.  It shows a ton of real snowflakes while playing classical music.  Pretty cool. 

Learn how to make paper snowflakes.  Step-by-step.  You could turn this into a flow chart activity or have the kids make their own patterns.  It's also a perfect symmetry lesson.

Snowy Science

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Make a miniature snowman, bring him in, and predict how long it will take for him to melt inside.  Time it.  I did this with my class, but couldn't find my picture!  It takes a lot longer than you think and the kids were obsessed with checking on 'Frosty' throughout the day

  

Making Insta-Snow is always fun.  You can measure it, predict how much it will grow, throw it around the room, use in your sand/water table, etc.  

Bubbles freeze below 32... maybe a good experiment?  I found this on Parents.com

If you happen to have snow... fill water bottles up with colored water and go 'graffiti' the snow.  You could talk about how secondary colors are made, write letters/numbers, etc.  Looks cool!  Also from Parents.com.

This is a site from Caltech that's dedicated to snowflakes.  It's more suited for the older crowd, but they do have some pretty cool pictures and information.

Learn how and why avalanches happen.  Discovery Education even has lesson plans all ready to go for you. This is also geared towards the upper grades.

  

Snow Themed Units

118 pages Grade K-1 Ms. Arnold	18 pages Grade PreK-2Live Laugh Love Kindergarten	Grade PreK-1 FREE!!! Penny Waddingham
(Awesome!) Grade 1-3 Babbling Abby	146 pages Grade 2 Lory Evans	19 pages Grade 3-5 Rebecca Bettis

Snow Games

This is one of those adaptable SmartBoard koosh ball games.  $3.00 on TPT from Christie Squires.

Again, if you happen to have snow... Frosty Toss.  Draw a circle, take turns seeing who can hit the target with snowballs.  Could be a fun recess game if your allowed to go out when it's below 32.  I know some schools aren't, which seems weird to me... not even for 10 minutes?!  I found this on Parents.com

More Snow Resources

Snow Thematic Unit - Compiled by Midge Frazel, this has lots of great links for K-12

Teacher Vision - TONS of links & printables relating to snow

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