Oh No! My Snowman Melted!

We have been finishing up our winter/arctic/snow unit! Our last craft activity that we did was our "melted snowman." We learned all about freezing and melting and did a couple of different science activities with freezing and melting as well. For our last day we made melted snowman since (hopefully) it will start to warm up outside! This is an easy project to do. All you need is 3 circles of different sizes, colorful background paper, glue, and items to decorate the snowman with (eyes, buttons, scarfs, etc). I let them put together and decorate their snowmen however they wanted to and they were pretty creative! 

making the snowman

this one decided to add some glitter since snow is sparkly. 

melted snowman!

Once we were done, we named our snowman and wrote a sentence about why our snowman melted. A few melted because they visited the beach and the beach is hot, others because it winter ended so that means no more snow and one sent his on a rocket ship to the sun because the sun is hot and would be able to melt his super snowman. 

Goodbye winter/snow/arctic! I'm personally ready for some warmer weather themes :) 

Ice Melting- Science Activity

On Thursday and Friday we focused some more on what happens to ice/snow when it warms up and things that can make snow/ice melt. We did a science activity with salt, ice and water colors to see what salt does to ice. This is a great activity that students can do on their own and can really see how salt makes ice crack and melt.

Materials needed: ice, salt, water colors, spoons (or something to use to pour the water colors on the ice) and bowls/containers

First we filled up small cups almost to the top with water and placed them in the freezer to freeze over night. Then we removed the ice and placed it in a bowl.

Next we got the rest of our materials ready. Each student got a cup with a small amount of salt, a spoon, and then there were bowls in the middle of our tables with water colors in them.

Then students sprinkled salt all over their ice. They would put some on the top, wait a minute and then roll it on it side and add more salt. After about 4-5 minutes you could see the salt doing it's magic.

Then we started adding our water colors. The darker the water color paint was, the better it showed up. We started with one color so that we could really see it and then would add other colors on different parts of the ice.

Then we added a little more salt and water colors.

After a while, we had some very interesting looking ice formations. We walked around and looked at everyone's ice. We talked about the different colors and the different shapes. This activity really helped students to understand melting more and how other things, besides for the sun can affect snow and ice. 

Our bowl full of our colorful, melting ice.

This was such a fun project. I would love to do it again with different sizes and shapes of ice. A large cube of ice would be fun to use.

Salt and Water Color Paintings

 Our latest art project involved salt and water colors. We have been learning about snow and freezing, and also learning about melting and things that can make snow and ice melt. For art, we made these beautiful salt and water color paintings. All you need is construction paper (we used black because I wanted the colors to really stand out), salt, glue and any colors of water color paint that you want to use. My favorite colors were the red and orange because they really were bright and stood out on the black paper. 




First we decided on our design and made it using glue. 

Then we covered the glue with salt and let it dry over night.

Then we painted our designs. We dropped paint drops onto the salt and watched the colors spread through the salt. 

Finished products:

This project was so much fun. It helped to create discussions about the salt absorbing the colors,  how the paint would spread when dropped on the salt, and colors mixing to make new colors. Everyone's' painting were so different and the students enjoyed seeing what their friends pictures looked like and were asking questions. Plus it is a great lead way into our upcoming science activity with salt and ice. 

We made snow!

On Friday we made "snow!" It was so much fun. I don't know what was more fun, watching what happens in the microwave or getting to play with it afterwards. I got the idea from this pin that I had seen many times on Pinterest and it looked like so much fun.

First you start of with a bar of ivory soap (I used a total of 3 bars to make enough for my entire class).

Unwrap a bar of soap and place it in the microwave.

Next let the bar of soap cook. It takes less than 2 minutes for it to be done! We loved watching it expand and grow into weird shapes. 

Before taking it out the microwave you might want to let it cool off a little, ours was a little hot. 

I let each student feel the large piece that formed from each bar of soap and to describe what they were feeling. It is hard, but it does have soft areas and it's pretty easy to break apart. I was expecting it to be more foamy feeling and not so hard. Next I broke it up into pieces and gave each student a piece to play with. I put it in containers because I didn't not know if it would be difficult to clean up soap. We used our hands, spoons, measuring cups and other materials to explore the "snow" with. 

After playing with it for awhile, it does break up into lots of small, fine pieces, which made me really happy that I had decided to put it in containers. But that was fun to play with as well (and felt more like 'snow') and the students really enjoyed the texture of it (and it made our classroom smell really good). I read online from someone else who had done this project that they were able to mold theirs into different shapes (they didn't say how they did it though). We were not able to do it. Once ours fell apart into little pieces, they did not stick back together again. One student even tried added water to theirs, which just ended up making a soapy wet mess. I don't know if we 'cooked' ours too long (or maybe not long enough) to do that, or even if that affects it. Maybe we will try it again another day to see if we can figure it out (or if anyone knows please let me know). 

Have you ever done this activity (or a similar activity) before?

Snowmen At Night Art Project

We have started out our snow/winter/arctic unit focusing on snow and snowmen. After reading "Snowmen at Night" by Caralyn Buehner we did our own snowmen at night art project. We used black construction paper, white paint, white glitter, white tissue paper and some colorful tissue paper (because I was informed that our snowmen needed eyes and buttons). The students created their paintings however they wanted to, and then they described their snowmen to me and I wrote a short explanation to go along with each painting telling about the snowman and what they do at night. We had some very entertaining stories about our snowmen, snowgirls and snow people including going to school at night, racing dump trucks, going to the zoo and having birthday parties. 

These 2 are hanging out in a snowstorm. 

This is a happy snowman because he has not melted yet. 

This snowman has glowing eyes and buttons so that you can see him at night. 

Tomorrow we are starting our "Lets Build a Snowman" books. 

Are you doing any snowman themed art projects with your students? I have one more snowman themed art project to do towards the end of our unit focusing on melting snowmen. 

3D Christmas Tree Craft

Today we finished up our Christmas trees! They turned out so cute! Everyone was so proud of their trees and were complimenting each other on their trees and how they liked how their friends decorated their trees. 

Here is how we made them. 

First, I cut out the tree outlines using my Cameo. Or you can cut out trees yourself. Each student needs 2 trees. 

This is what my trees looked like cut out.

Next you need to make a slit on the top of 1 of the trees and at the bottom of the other tree so that you can slide them together.

Then slide the trees together and they should stand up!

Then we worked on decorating our trees. This took a couple of days since you do have to decorate both sides. We used paint, glitter and sequins to decorate our trees. We also were able to practice lots of different fine motor skills by decorating our trees. We used Q-tips and glitter paint to make our 'lights' on our tree.

Then after they dry, you can slide them together, stand them up and you are ready to go!

Did you do a Christmas tree craft this year?

Don't forget to enter my 12 days of Christmas Giveaways that are currently going on.