The snow was lovely for me, arriving on a  Friday night after my children were home and  enough neighbors were in town to make the  shoveling more of a community gathering  than a huge chore.

I did wish that school was in session so I  could learn what my students would do with  20 inches of snow, an unusual amount for our  region and a first for their young lives.

I would have the children measure the snow depth around the playground using a stick and record the depth by drawing the length on paper, scoop snow and build up ramps for sliding mini-sleds (bowls) down, fill a measuring cup full of snow to take inside to see how much water is in one cup of snow, and dig down in the sand pit to see how the snow affected the sand. Would children work long enough to mound snow high enough (on the otherwise flat playground) for themselves to slide down?

Looking to northern regions I found suggestions for snow activities.

• From Wings of Discovery in Ontario Canada, a program developed by Let’s Talk Science to help children develop important skills while having fun exploring the world through science:
  • Take a walk in the snow with your child. Look for footprints made by animals and people.  Use a field guide to identify them if you wish.
  • Bring a dishpan full of snow inside for your child to explore. Talk about how the warm temperature inside causes the snow to melt.
  • Fill spray bottles with coloured water to colour outdoor snow sculptures.
  • When outside, point out the melting snow or ice and ask your child to tell you why it is melting.
• From Sheri Amsel’s Exploring Nature Educational Resource in New York:
  • Where Do Animals Go in Winter? Find information and beautiful scientific illustrations to answer your children’s questions.
• In the December 2009 Science and Children, the Natural Resources column, “Winter Secrets” by Valynda Mayes shares a list of in-print resources.

Speaking of in-print resources, reading aloud a fiction and a nonfiction book on the same day (or even same circle time if student attention allows) can help children relate new information to their own experiences. Try these books.

Nonfiction

• Snow and the Earth and Snow and People, both by Nikki Bundey (2000 and 2001, Lerner) which relate how snow is formed and how people live in regions with snow. The photographs support, and expand on, the text.

Fiction

• It’s Snowing by Olivier Dunrea (2002, Farrar, Straus and Giroux), tells of a mother who shares the joy of a snow fall with a very young child.
• The Big Snow by Berta Hader and Elmer Hader (2005, Alladin). Do you remember this 1949 Caldecott Medal tale of animals coming to the food put out by an older couple? Still in print because it’s so enjoyable.
• First Snow by Emily Arnold McCully (2003, HarperCollins) A mouse family goes sledding in this formerly, now nearly, wordless book with lots of detail in the illustrations to talk about.
• Snow by Manya Stojic (2002, Knopf). Forest animals remark on the coming snow and the various ways they will adapt their behavior to survive it.
• And of course, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962, Viking), in which Peter explores a snowfall and tries to bring a small piece of it home.

So I’m hoping for more snow in January, enough to explore but not enough to close school. And if the children do not come dressed for the weather, I’ll bring the snow inside. How about you? Are you living where the children always come to school with boots, mittens, and hats, or where the only snow people are those made from marshmallows?

Peggy

Here in the Northeast, we had to dig our way through the recent storm, the most snow we’ve had in my neck of the woods for two years! I once hosted an exchange teacher from Australia in January (their summer break), who had never seen snow. Snowplows, snowblowers, snowshoes, and skimobiles were all new to her! She said it was very beautiful, “but we never realized that afterwards, one must shift it about.”

Even if you live in a part of the country that does not usually have to shift it about, snow can still be an interesting topic in a meteorology unit. In SciLinks, use the key word “Snowflakes” for grades 9-12. (It’s ok if you don’t teach at those levels–the sites have lots of photographs and ideas for many grade levels.) I really like the All About Snow site from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

If the forecast includes the dreaded “wintry mix,” the precipitation section of the WW2010 site has diagrams that differentiate between rain, freezing rain, sleet, hail, and snow.

I saw a school the other day where the windows were decorated with “snowflakes” of eight sides. (I guess octagons are easier to cut out of paper?) For more realistic pictures, check out the photo galleries at Snow Crystals, created by a physics professor at CalTech. The photo at the top is from his site.

And if you have a copy of the book Snowflake Bentley in your classroom or library, check out the related resources on this photographer at the Buffalo Museum of Science.

My snowshoes and binoculars are ready for some winter birding over the holiday break. Best wishes to all!

I was in a school once where the teachers did a “winter” unit on penguins with activities that included trade books, puzzles, writing activities, and the showing of several popular films. But there was not a lot of science involved, and one of their bulletin boards even showed a group of polar bears and penguins frolicking together (Arrgh!). They put a lot of time and effort into this, but I had to wonder what the students actually learned about these birds or about the winter season.

Any change of season can be a focus for science activities. A colleague starts each season by having students brainstorm seasonal questions and adding a few of her own. She shares some of the winter ones:

Why do we have “winter?” What is a “solstice?”
What happens when animals hibernate?
How do frogs survive the winter?
Why should we “dress in layers” when it’s cold?
Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?
What does a desert look like in winter?
Is there a difference between a conifer and an evergreen?
Are all conifers called “pines?”
Do we see different constellations in the winter? Why?
How does a thermostat work? How does a heat pump work?
Why do people put wax on skis?
What is the “jet stream” that seems to influence our weather?
Do El Ninos and La Ninas happen in the winter?
Why do icicles form? What makes ice slippery?
How does “insulation” work?
If ice is a solid, why does it float?
What is “frostbite?”
Does colder weather cause us to catch a cold?
What’s the difference between the Arctic and Antarctica?
Why do highway crews put salt on the road? What happens to the salt later?

Note how these questions include topics in the life, physical, and earth sciences. She puts them on her “seasons” bulletin board and refers to them in her lessons where appropriate. For example, during a unit on the states of matter she would address questions related to ice, a weather unit would incorporate the questions on El Nino. At the end of the season she wraps things up with any remaining questions.

She does not look up all of the answers herself to present to the students. Through hands-on activities and Internet searches, she guides students through the process of answering their own questions. That’s where SciLinks can help. Use keywords such as Snowflake, El Nino, Identifying trees, Ice, Season, Heat, States of matter, or Constellations to access web-based sources of information and ideas for related activities.