Do you want to build a snowman? Just say that one time in your classroom and they are bound to break out in song…am I right? Mine sure did! There are so many fun snowman activities for the primary classroom that I certainly can’t list them all, but I did create this post to share a few of my classroom favorites!
Snowman Picture Books
There are so many fun snowman themed books. These were a few of the favorites that my students enjoyed. I bought all of these titles either through Scholastic Book Club or from Amazon. You can click here to shop my Amazon book list. I used these books as either writing topic activities or mentor text. If you choose to use these books as mentor text, you can use the following ELA skills to pull and find sentences to teach while you read:
- Capitalization (beginning of sentences)
- Ending Punctuation
- Quotation Marks
- Commas in a Series
- Parts of Speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc)
- Phonics Patterns
One of our favorite books that we read was Snowmen at Night. The kids enjoyed learning more about the vocabulary, comparing real snowmen to the snowmen in the story, and more. I used this lap book activity to help reinforce skills and encourage my students to think creatively as we worked. Click here to learn more about this lapbook.
Snowman Subtraction Review
This was a favorite of my students during our week of snowman activities. Who knew subtraction review worksheets could be so much fun? Here’s how this pack works.
- Students all start off with the first review sheet. When they “pass off” (you decide what goal you want them to have) they earn the bottom base of their snowman.
- Then, students pick up the next review sheet. They complete it and earn the next piece of their snowman. This continues until they have reviewed all of the subtraction strategies and completed their snowman.
- No board display necessary. I did draw this fun visual on my board for students, but you don’t have to. Just have the pages and pieces laid out like the top picture.
- I set a limit for how many steps my students could complete in a day. My higher students would have completed the snowman in a day if they could have. They were all so motivated and wanted to complete the challenge.
Snowman Snack
We ended our snowman unit with a fun snack. The kids loved building their own snowman and getting to decorate it however they wanted to. Here are a few of the items that you need for this task.
- Powdered Donuts
- Shish-kabobs
- Plates
- Twizzlers (the peel kind)
- M&Ms
- Pretzels Sticks
- Candy Corn (nose)
- Grid pretzel for hat (optional)
If you have students with allergies, a different option from donuts are Rice Krispy Treats.
Directed Snowman Drawing
My kids go nuts when I pass out white card-stock! They immediately know that it is time for a dictated drawing activity.
I must confess that I am not one of those teachers who can type out directions for you step by step to complete this activity. The truth is…I’m terrible at drawing, but I can complete something if I look at a picture. What I do is draw alongside the students using my doc camera. We complete each step together and, then they get to color the next day for morning work. If you are looking for step by step directions, Proud to be Primary has a ton of directed drawings on her website. Check her out for more details.
One important tip to remind your students is that it doesn’t have to be perfect as they are sketching. They will cover up all those imperfections with smooth strokes of a marker. Your OCD and gifted students will have a hard time with this. However, they will become pros the more directed drawing activities that you do.
I always enjoy seeing how students make the drawings their own. No two drawings turn out exactly the same even though we all follow the same steps.
After we finish a directed drawing, I usually display them in the hallway with a writing topic. The kids love walking past them in the hallway and getting compliments from other teachers and students.
“I don’t have time for directed drawings.” I’m sorry, but I don’t think that is an excuse! Think about the benefits of taking 10-15 minutes of your day to do this. (Or, you could use these for rainy day recess activities)
- Kids learn to hyper focus while doing a directed drawing. They learn to tune out hallway noise or other distractions around them as they are drawing.
- Dictated drawings also help students learn shapes and combining shapes to form pictures and illustrations.
- Writers Workshop illustrations improve and allow for more information to be shared through their drawings and labels.
- Students are motivated to improve, and fine motor skills are practiced.
What are some of your favorite snowman activities? Please leave a comment and share your ideas too!
One Comment
You seriously have amazing resources! I am in love with your Snowman week cross-curricular activities. I love the information you shared on dictated drawing and concentration. I teach in a cyber environment and some of our students have several distractions. I would love to use this strategy to support concentration and focus. Thank you so much for sharing.
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