Are All Snowflakes The Same?

Today was all about exploring snowflakes: how they form, how many sides they have, and the temperatures at which they can be made. We didn’t have much snow to work with outside, but that didn’t stop us from having a lot of fun learning about snowflakes!

Our outside game this morning was Frost and Sun, a tag game that went nicely with our theme. For greeting, we did another “where’s my twin” greeting where homeschoolers had to find their match. Everyone had a kind of snowflake, like spatial dendrite, hexagonal plate, and stellar crystal. One we found our partners we sat down and greeted each other.

Homeschoolers soon discovered that we had another mystery password. Not only that but there was another mystery: What is wrong with the snowflakes on the windows? We solved these problems with clues gathered throughout the day. 

 Homeschoolers had very impressive home projects to share today! Keep up the good work!

To find out how a snowflake is formed, we began by reaching in our pockets.  Most of us found pieces of dust and lint, which is the first building block of a snowflake! Then I read a “snow fantasy” where homeschoolers imagined they were specks of dust blowing into a cloud and becoming a snowflake. We learned that most snowflakes have six sides because that’s how water molecules form into crystals. 

Then I read The Snow Show by Carolyn Fisher, a funny story about a cooking-style TV show where the audience the recipe for a snowflake.

For our morning activity we all got a chance to build our own snowflakes using marshmallows and toothpicks. After homeschoolers built their own, I gave them the challenge of building a capped column. Kids got very creative in solving this problem!

Then we had snack and headed out for our outdoor adventure. We began with a snow scavenger hunt, but we soon abandoned that for some fun fallen trees and were soon climbing all over the place. Just about everyone got a chance to climb a tree!

We saw skunk cabbage beginning to poke up from the leaves! We stepped on some and they were sure stinky!

 

Journal time was busy today. We used a secret code and felt what was in the mystery bag to figure out the password: hexagon.

Then we took the temperature outside and made our own snow thermometers based on the Snowflake Bentley poster. 

Last, we used a flannel board story to illustrate the creation of a snowflake inside a cloud. See you Monday! Please send in a pair of indoor shoes in addition to outdoor shoes for our morning greeting.