☃️🏔️❄️ Snow
Snow, Snow, Snow! I hope you enjoy the Snow Lesson Plan! Some things to note:
My Snow Book - Guided Writing
25 Days of Christmas Lift-the-Flap Advent Calendar
Snowflake Build-a-Word Scramble
Snowflake Geometry Challenge
Salt Painting Snowflakes
Snow Crystals
Snowy Neighborhood Sensory Play
Build a Snowman
Winter Animal Locomotor Skills Game
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Enjoy! Tiff
☃️🏔️❄️ Snow
My Snow Book
Snow, Snow, Snow! "What is Christmas with no snow"
Students will learn about ice crystals, snowflakes, snow activities, and extreme weather while learning new vocabulary, practicing handwriting and creating their own Snow Book. The final page is a snow globe writing page where students can draw a picture in their snow globe about why they like snow.
Also includes two fun craft templates: a snowflake salt painting template and a blank snow globe for paper crafts.
25 Days of Christmas Lift-The-Flap
Make everyday till Christmas filled with Christmas Cheer! Choose your adventure this holiday season as you pick which fun activities you will do on each day with this 25 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar.
This was inspired by artwork my 5 year-old did completely by herself. We had so much fun making a printable version together with 60 options to choose from.
English Language Arts - Phonemic Awareness
Snowflake Build-A-Word Scramble
I love when learning activities feel like play! This was so much fun that my daughter wanted to keep going.
First, I challenged my daughter to write the word “snowflake” using our wooden letter coins (she only missed the silent e).
Then the challenge was to come up with as many words as we could using the letters in the word “snowflake”. She came up with the first two in no time. We took turns coming up with words and she wrote them all on the board. We used the magnets to rearrange the letters as we brainstormed new words. We had the board filled in no time!
Reading Lessons
There are only two resources I like to make sure I include on each week’s lesson plan, Prodigies Music (below) and Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book has thousands of 5 star reviews on Amazon for a reason. It’s an effective, no-prep way to teach reading. We are 40 or so lessons in and I can already see a huge difference, my daughter actually sounds out the words instead of guessing.
The lessons are short (15-20min), easy to grasp and sequential. The entire lesson is scripted and color coded so it’s fool proof, just read the words in pink. It also is designed for kids that don’t know their alphabet or letter sounds yet, so you can start right away. Their claim is that after completing all 100 lessons your child will be able to read at a 2nd grade level!
Math - Subtraction
Snowflake Geometry Challenge
For our circle time this week, I challenged my daughters to build snowflakes (they had to have six sides) out of Magformer tiles while I read the book “It’s Snowing!” by Gail Gibbons. I like to have something related to the content that my girls can fiddle with while I read longer non-fiction books. Playing with a toy helps them stay engaged while learning about new concepts.
With the Magformer set we own, we had triangles, squares and pentagons to work with. My oldest grabbed the pentagon to start and then realized she made a star, not a snowflake. So she started again, this time using triangles and she had made her snowflake in no time.
Art and Music
Salt Snowflakes
Make your own snowflake salt painting with the snowflake template included in the My Snow Book. Just print the template on cardstock, trace the shape with white glue and cover in salt. Shake off the excess salt and it’s ready to paint. If you want to, you can let it dry a little first so the shape doesn’t get smudged when you paint. Then touch the salt gently with a little bit of watercolor to watch the magic happen. As the paint touches the salt it absorbs the color and spreads throughout your snowflake!
Supplies: white glue, salt, watercolor paint, paint brushes, white cardstock
Prodigies Music
Do…Re…Mi…
We love Prodigies! Prodigies Music is simply an incredible curriculum for teaching music. Ages 2-5 is the critical time to develop a life-long sense of pitch. Their curriculum is designed to develop a sense of pitch with easy to use desk bells that don’t require any tuning. They also teach piano, recorder and ukulele. Their subscription includes everything you can think of 450+ videos, worksheets, free bell mats, sheet music all color coded so it’s super easy to learn. If you don’t have an instrument they have a bunch of rhythm focused content that doesn’t require an instrument.
They have a free trial and discounts for annual memberships! Great deal! You can even check out some of their videos for free on YouTube.
Science
Snow Crystals
Our second attempt at growing crystals was a huge success! We added 4 TBSP Borax to a cup of boiling water and made sure it dissolved completely until the water was mostly clear.
We grew crystals on two different objects. First, we used pipe cleaners to make simple snowflake shapes. For these we used food coloring and the girls got to choose their own colors.
We also got some small tinsel Christmas trees from the Target Dollar Spot. For these we purposefully didn’t use food coloring so the crystals would look more like snow. Success we got two beautifully snowy trees!
Supplies: boiling water, Borax, mason jars, pipe cleaners, food coloring, mini Christmas trees.
Sensory Play
Snowy Neighborhood
This week, we re-used the fake snow we made last week and just added new toys to play with. In case you missed it, the snow recipe was 1/2 cup white conditioner to 3 cups baking soda (we did three batches). I used coconut scented conditioner, so to hide the scent, I added Forest Pine essential oils.
Next, I added some bottle brush trees rolled in the snow, and some wooden houses to make a neighborhood. We loaded a Christmas Tree on the back of a wooden pick-up truck and we were ready to play!
We pretended there was a blizzard and covered the village with snow, then dug it out again. So fun!
Filler: fake snow (white conditioner and baking soda), Forest Pine scent from the Holiday Essential Oils Set.
Supplies: wooden town figurines, bottle brush trees, snowflake confetti
Build a Snowman Sensory Play
Instead of snowman craft, I opted for snowman sensory play to make the best use of that fake snow we made (recipe above). It wasn’t a great consistency for rolling balls to make a 3D snowman, so we made ours flat and they turned out great. I think next year we may try white playdoh, or even better get out in the snow and make the real thing!
Filler: fake snow (white conditioner and baking soda), Forest Pine scent from the Holiday Essential Oils Set.
Supplies: snowman cookie cutter, googly eyes, carrots cut into nose shapes, buttons, small Christmas pom poms
Physical Education
Snowball Fight
Every winter, I ache for the cold. I wish we could run outside and play in the snow until we are numb.
But even though we live in a tropical climate, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good old-fashioned snowball fight. I can’t think of a better way to get your heart rate up than running around your house throwing fake snowballs at each other.
I recommend keeping the snowballs under the Christmas tree. This ensures lots of impromptu snowball fights in the living room.
Supplies: artificial snowballs
Frozen Cosmic Kids Yoga
Snow week would not be complete if we didn’t do the Frozen themed Cosmic Kids Yoga. This is one of all our all time favorite Cosmic Kids Videos and we watch it throughout the year. The storytelling is brilliant as always, and the yoga poses really get you moving. Fingers crossed they will do a Frozen II version soon!
This is also part of the Cosmic Kids Yoga Quest where you can print free maps that help you on your journey through 20 yoga adventures. Once completed you receive a certificate of completion.
Winter Animal Locomotor Skills
This is a fun way to work on the 8 basic locomotor skills included as part of most Kindergarten physical education standards. Just pick a card, roll a dice and everyone completes that action that number of times. (i.e. Gallop like a reindeer three times).
Book List
Books We Love!
- Blizzard
- It’s Snowing! - Gail Gibbons
- Snow - Cynthia Rylant
- Snow - Uri Shulevitz
- Ice is Nice! - Dr. Seuss Learning Library
Don’t have the budget or space to get more books? The library has been pretty great for us so far, but they are sometimes out of the more popular books. One place that you can always count on to find great books is Epic Books! Try Epic Basic for FREE! You can find awesome read to me books for free, Unlimited plan includes access to 40,000+ books!
Looking for a Social Studies lesson? We love getting our Universal Yums country themed snack box each month which includes a 12 page booklet with facts about the country and a bunch of snacks to try. We love learning about the ingredients grown in different countries and fun facts like potato chips weren’t always popular in Italy.
Know of any other awesome Snow themed resources? Please comment below!
Do you know anyone else that would enjoy these free weekly lesson plans? Get them on the list!
