The white snow and whistling winds of winter have officially set in and it is the perfect time of year to play with and observe snow!
If possible, take students outside on a winter walk to observe the snow, let them touch it, smell it, listen as they crunch it, walk on it etc. Allow them to share their own observations. For example ask: What does the snow feel like? Is it cold? Warm? What does it smell like? What does it sound like when you walk on it? What do you think would happen to the snow if we brought it inside? Why?
When you are done exploring and playing outside bring a container of snow inside to observe as it melts. Ask the children why they think it melted. Is there anything they could have done to keep the snow from melting inside? Listen to and record their ideas and then do the classroom experiment below.
Insulation experiment:
Ask children what they wear when they go outside in the winter? Why do they wear these? Do the extra layers keep them warm? Would layers keep the snow/ice cubes cold? Explain that the layers they wear work as insulation to keep them warm. Insulation traps air and keeps the temperature the same or slows down the change of the temperature.
You are going to do an experiment to see if you can wrap snowballs or ice cubes in insulation to prevent them from melting in your classroom. Ask the children what they think would prevent the ice/snowballs from melting (or use previously discussed ideas from above). Keep a list of their suggestions. Discuss as a class the ideas that you want to try. Pick the ones that you are going to try and gather the supplies that you need. Some suggestions for insulation for the ice/snowballs might be newspaper/paper, hats/mittens, aluminum foil, tissue etc…let the children lead the experiment.
Once you have decided on the insulation that you are going to use, gather snowballs from outside or use previously frozen ice cubes and place each one in a separate container. Wrap each snowball in its chosen insulator and place in its own container. Be sure to leave on ice cube/snowball without insulation to act as your “control” to see how fast the ice cubes/snowballs would otherwise melt inside. Make predictions about what you think is going to happen to the ice cubes/snowballs.
Over the course of the day observe your ice cubes/snow balls and record what is happening. Take pictures so you can create a display board of your experiment to display in your classroom. As you observe the ice cubes/snowballs ask the kids to make observations about what is happening. Is it what they thought was going to happen? Why or why not? Why do they think it turned out the way it did? What else do we use insulation for? Record your classroom results and observations.
In addition, bring snow into the classroom and place it in one of your centers in a water table and allow the children to play with it as it melts. Observe how it gets sticky before it melts. When was it the easiest to build with? Why? What can you do with frozen? Melted?
Book List
Bancroft, H. 1997. Animals in Winter. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Barasch, L. 1993. A Winter Walk. Ticknor & Fields.
Berger, M. 1995. What Do Animals Do in Winter?: How Animals Survive the Cold. Ideals Publications.
Brett, J. 1996. The Mitten. Penguin Group.
Buehner, C. 2002. Snowmen at Night. Dial.
Butler, M.C. 2006. One Winter's Day. Good Books.
Cartwright, A. 1990. The Winter Hedgehog. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.
Cole, J. 1973. Plants in Winter. Harpercollins.
Conrad, H. 2001. Lights of Winter: Winter Celebrations Around the World. Lightport Books.
Denslow, S.P. 2005. In the Snow. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Dixon, A. 2002. Winter Is. Alaska Northwest Books.
Evans, L. 2002. Winter: An Alphabet Acrostic. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Fallon, J. 2005. Snowball Fight. Dutton Juvenile.
Finnegan, M.P. 2002. Winter: Signs of the Season around North America. Capstone Press.
Fleming, D. 2001. Time to Sleep. Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated.
Florian, D. 1999. Winter Eyes. Greenwillow Books.
Freedman, R. 1981. When Winter Comes. Penguin Young Readers Group.
Gershator, P. 2001. When It Starts to Snow. Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated.
Glaser, L. 2002. It's Winter. Millbrook Press.
Good, E.W. 1994. White Wonderful Winter! Good Books.
Hader, B. 2005. The Big Snow. Simon & Schuster Children's.
Hirschi, R. 1996. Winter. Penguin Group Incorporated.
Hiscock, B. 1995. When Will It Snow? Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.
Jones, J.B. 2001. Who Lives in the Snow? Rinehart P.
Kirk, D. 2004. Snow Dude. Hyperion.
Kroll, L. 2003. Winter, Awake! SteinerBooks, Incorporated.
Lawlor, E.P. 1998. Discover Nature in Winter: Things to Know and Things to Do. Stackpole Books.
McDonnell, J. 1993. Winter: Tracks in the Snow. Scholastic Library Publishing.
Minor, W. 1996. Red Fox Running. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Moncure, J.B. 2000. In Winter. Child's World, Incorporated.
Moore, E. 2005. The Magic School Bus Sleeps for the Winter. Scholastic, Inc.
Moutran, J.S. 1987. Story of Punxsutawney Phil, "the Fearless Forecaster". Literary Publications.
Murray, M.D. 2003. Don't Wake Up The Bear. Marshall Cavendish Inc.
National Geographic Society. 1997. Animals In Winter. National Geographic Children's Books.
Partridge, E. 1992. Moon Glowing. Penguin Young Readers Group.
Pascoe, E. 2000. How and why Animals Prepare for Winter. Creative Teaching Press, Incorporated.
Pfeffer,W. 2003. The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice. Dutton Juvenile.
Prelutsky, J. 1984. It's Snowing! It's Snowing! Greenwillow Books.
Sabuda, R. 2005. Winter's Tale: An Original Pop-up Journey. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.
Sams, C.R. 2000. Stranger in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy. Sams, Carl, R. II, Photography.
Schnur, S. 2002. Winter: An Alphabet Acrostic. Clarion Books; Library Binding edition.
Seuling, B. 2002. Winter Lullaby. Harcourt Children's Books.
Stewart, P. 1999. Little Bit of Winter. HarperCollins Children's Books.
Stojic, M. 2002. Snow. Crown Books for Young Readers.
Stringer, L. 2006. Winter Is the Warmest Season. Harcourt Children's Books.
Thayer, T. 2001. Winter. Lerner Publishing Group.
Thomson, R. 1989. Winter. Scholastic Library Publishing.
Vestergaard, H. 2004. Hello, Snow! Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Wellington, M. 2000. Bunny's First Snowflake. Penguin Group Incorporated.
Wildsmith, B. 1991. Animal Seasons. Oxford University Press.
Yolen, J. and J. Stemple. 2005. Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children. Boyd Mills Press.
