Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

February 17, 2015 by Aldersgate Preschool 1 Comment

It is rare that it snows while the grandkids are here.  So, the kids and I took full advantage of my day off from preschool to explore some fun snow play before they had to leave for home.  I loved watching and supporting how the play changed as we went.  I thought I would share a little about it.

My snow boots are under my desk at preschool and Wyatt probably couldn’t handle the cold very long so we opted to bring some snow inside.  We started with some exploring, scooping, and “cooking” to begin the play.

And a little tasting.

Then we decided to make our inside snowman.  He had to be a little guy though.

(My apologies for the blurry photo.  It’s hard to play and focus at the same time.  Also, Anna happened to have the tiny little carrot that came with her little rabbit hutch set she got for Valentine’s Day.  Wasn’t it perfect!)

We couldn’t find anything small enough for the eyes and the mouth so we tried washable skinny markers.  I bet you can imagine what happened next.

Goodbye snowman……. but hello color investigation.  Also, it was surprising to Anna that the snow in the snowman’s body was much harder to poke into than the other unpacked snow.  We decided we liked the color so much we wondered what would happen with fat markers.  Oooh, lot’s more color!

Hmmm, what could we do with that?  We had little lids out (notice the snowman hat above) so those became soup bowls.  Now we are having some fine motor practice.  It is surprising how hard you have to press to get the snow to pack into a milk lid. (Great fine motor experience.)

Oh no, the colored snow was getting kind of yucky looking.  And brownish colored.  (Sorry, no visual image available but I bet you can imagine it.)  We talked a little about the science of colors and how they change.  It was okay though.  There was still lots of  new fresh snow available.  This time we got out the small animals.

At first it was fun to just play with them and push them into the snow.  Soon, though, we decided to play hide and seek so Anna closed her eyes while I buried a few animals.

She found them but had a harder time finding the polar bear.  Hmmm, a nice opportunity to talk about habitats and animal camouflage.  Of course she got to have a turn hiding animals.  We followed that with a little more in-depth play with the polar bears.

“My hands are cold.”  To be honest I was surprised we had played this long without hearing this but, no worries.  We just moved the animals to a drier and warmer place to play.  We used our magnatiles, rocks and some pretend tree we had made during another playtime to make rooms at the zoo for all the animals.

Anna soon had a new idea.  The giraffes had a party and ate cake (pieces of a fake flower in a small match box.)  EVERYONE needed to attend the party.  This girl lives by the motto “go big or go home.”

You may also notice we added a playdough cake right in the middle of the party.  This way everyone could have some.

This is when our play ended.  You might be glad to know that at this point Grandpa Mo was available (he had his boots) to take Anna out for some sledding and snowball making.  (Hint, using a rounded measuring cup as a form for the powdery snow made some pretty great balls.)

I’ll end with just a couple of observations.

1. Notice our zoo is  being built on a table.  Sometimes kids like to play more at eye level than always on the floor.  It also makes life happier (read easier and quieter with no screaming “No Wyatt.”) since it is a lot safer from little brother up here.

2. You’ll notice Wyatt was only included in the first couple of pictures of snow play.  As is typical with one year olds, he was quickly off doing other things.  I snuck a peek at his play and took this “too cute not to share” photo.

Sadly, the kids are on their way home as I write this.  I would, however, love to hear how you enjoyed this snow day.  I am always filing away ideas for next time!