Let It Snow: A Snow Unit Study

The following post is from contributor, Erin of The Usual Mayhem.

It’s February, everything is piled high with snow (for half of us, anyway), and we’re all restless. What better time to study the snow itself?

I’ve compiled a collection of snow unit study links so you can explore with your kids in as much or as little depth as you like. Maybe an afternoon of capturing snowflakes under a microscope is just what you need to break out of the blues!

This post contains some affiliate links.

Science:

Photographing flakes and keeping a snow journal

How to build an igloo

Visit the National Snow & Ice Data Center

Test the effects of different substances on melting ice

Make snow ice cream

Combine sledding and physics!

Play with the interactive weather maker

Check out videos on snow survival, shelter building, and more-parents should preview these first for appropriate content!

Make salt crystal snowflakes on your paper

Inukshuk building how-to – scroll down the page to find this one

Exploring Nature has information about the Arctic , the Andes , the snow line,  and avalanches

Math:

Snowman math ideas for PK-2

Print the numbers 1 to 30 on snowflakes for early ages math review

Snow math for upper middle to high school

Explore the symmetry of snowflakes

Play snowflake multiplication bingo

Play with these snowflake matching cards

Print some free critical thinking math pages for grades 2-5

Find a dozen or more kindergarten math winter-themed printables

Sheppard Software has lots of free online winter math games

Cool Math Games has some fun snow games to play

 

Snow art projects:

An art project for the book The Snowy Day

A winter bird art lesson

A snowy scene paper project

A whole round-up of snowflake projects here!

 

Snow writing:

Some free winter-themed writing frames

A poetry lesson and free snowflake writing paper (scroll down a bit)

Free winter writing paper with some fun shapes

Winter creative writing prompts ( I’d say that these are more for older children, and some are a little bizarre)

Free primary level snow writing prompts, on pretty notebook pages

Explore the Eskimo/Aleut words for snow!

A very good article about the Eskimo/Aleut words for snow, for middle school and older

Learn about the life cycle of a snowflake

Some more free snow notebooking pages, because you can never have too many!

 

Free printable snow scrapbook paper:

Activity Village’s snow at night paper, snow cloud paper and their regular  snow scrapbook paper

Free “Let It Snow” printable paper

 

 

Miscellaneous shortcuts and fun ideas

If you just want a ready-made unit, Shining Dawn Books has a great Snow and Ice unit study for all ages, ready to go.

Or you could play a board game!

 

Snow fiction:

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson

Snowflake by Paul Gallico

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton

It’s Snowing!  by Gail Gibbons

Non-Fiction books:

Snow Caves For Fun and Survival by Ernest Wilkinson

Snowflake Bentley: Man of Science, Man of God  by Gloria May Stoddard

Snowflakes by Joan Sugarman

Snowflake Bentley  by Jacqueline Briggs Martin (You’ll want to see  Blog She Wrote’s older notebooking post about this book, too!)

History of the The Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra (for mature readers only!)

Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family’s Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds

Blizzards: Disasters Up Close

 

Snow videos:

The Donner Party

Avalanche Essentials: A Step-by-Step System for Safety and Survival

Blizzard: The Storm That Changed America

 

Got other great snow unit study links and posts? Please share them in the comments below!

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Erin can be found writing at The Usual Mayhem.