What is snow? How is it made? These questions can all be answered by using the following ideas with your preschooler(s). By focusing on the best part of snow: the snowman, children learn about ice and water, shapes, literacy, and most of all get to use their imagination with almost every activity!
Sensory Tables
Shaving Cream or Real Snow Sensory Table:
Use a bowl or large roasting pan (you can find the foil kind at most dollar stores) and fill with shaving cream. Add small toys, like little people or figures, cars, trucks, trains, or plastic animals and let your preschooler explore and create her own snowy scenery. Encourage her to build little snowmen, offering black beans for the coal eyes, mouth and buttons, and yarn for the scarves.
When (or if) it snows in your area, collect as much as you can, providing measuring cups, spoons, and even a small scale. Talk about hot and cold, and revisit the snow later in the day. Be sure to ask open-ended questions.
Science
Ice Experiment:
On a very cold day, talk about snowmen and what snow comes from. In a plastic container of some kind (old shampoo or bubble bath bottles with the top ¼ cut off work well) let your child help you fill with water. Set the container outside and discuss what she thinks will happen with it.
When it is frozen, cut plastic off and discard and let child examine. Set the ice block back outside, dash a bunch of salt on it, and add a few different things of food coloring. Ask your preschooler what will happen when you add salt to ice. Check back frequently with the ice block to discover the science of ice!
Reading
- The Snowman by Raymond Briggs [Random House Children’s Books, 2000]
- Frosty the Snowman by Jack Rollins & Steve Nelson [Ideals Publications, 2003]
Flannel Board Activities
These activities not only encourage creative thinking, but build on seriation skills, math skills, and even reading skills.
Snowman Seriation Skills:
Using a flannel board, print and laminate 10 snowmen of different sizes. Attach velcro on the back for easy sticking to the board. A great lead into this activity is the song “10 Little Indians”, but as snowmen instead. Encourage children to sort the snowmen by size. Print and laminate more holiday cutouts for fun storytelling opportunities.
Pieces of a Snowman:
Using white felt, cut 3 circles (small, medium, large) for the body of the snowman. Cut out different shapes for all the extra pieces of the snowman. Your child will then create his snowman learning the biggest circle goes on bottom and the smallest on top. These felt manipulative’s can keep a child engaged for quite some time!
Art
Snowflake Ornaments:
This is a great opportunity to talk to your child about the uniqueness of snowflakes. For a visual, a highly recommended book is The Snowflake: Winter’s Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht [Voyageur Press, Inc., 2003]. Another book is Snowflakes for All Seasons : 72 Easy-to-Make Snowflake Patterns by Cindy Higham [Gibbs Smith, 2004] if you’re unsure of how to make a snowflake.
Picking out your design, use poster board or white construction paper pasted onto cardboard. Add glue and glitter, punch a hole in the top, and string a ribbon through. Add a personal touch by pasting a picture of your child in the center, and be sure to date the back! For teachers, this makes a great bulletin board idea!
For an easy-to-make snow globe craft, go to the How to Make a Snow Globe activity.
Math
Snowman Puzzle:
Create an 8x10 document sized snowman on your PC. Print and laminate. Using a marker, draw puzzle lines throughout the snowman and then cut your puzzle pieces out. Store in a plastic baggy for continuous use.
Snowman File Folder Game:
Visit this File Folder Game article to learn how to assemble one. Using snowman cutouts, choose your mathematical theme, matching: shapes, numbers, patterns, sequencing, etc.
Visit the Christmas Lesson Plans article to further your child's winter education!
Enjoying all of these activities with your children is a definite way to grow their skills and imaginations, as well as providing hours of fun. Most importantly, you are getting special time with them while they learn the best way a preschooler learns: through play.
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