Materials
Snow
A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Buckets or plastic bags
Icicles
Water table
Sand shovels
Mittens
Clean white cups
Ice cubes
Instructions
1. On a day that there is snow on the ground, read A Snowy Day to the children. (If you live in an area where it doesn't snow, make "snow" for this activity using a snow cone machine.)2. Give the children buckets or plastic bags and take them outside for a discovery walk. Ask them to collect snow and ice in their buckets or bags. Ask them to look at all the different tracks in the snow (animal, human, tire, and so on) and any icicles that may be hanging.
3. When you return to the classroom, put the collected snow and ice into the water table along with shovels.
4. Provide mittens for the children to wear while exploring the snow and ice.
5. Do melting experiments. Ask the children to predict what will happen to the ice and snow in the water table. Put snow into a clean white cup. Ask the children to look in the cup after the snow melts. Where did the dirt come from? Put one ice cube under a light and one away from the light. Which one melts faster?More to doArt: Give the children white playdough and items for making tracks, such as plastic vehicles and animals.More Art: Encourage the children to create snowflake prints using snowflake sponges, paint, and paper.Literacy: Make and display a list of new words that the children learned (melt, tracks, icicle, and so on).
