Shake, shake, shake, little ones love to shake and this activity is perfect for anytime of the year!  With help from an adult children can make a winter scene or any theme throughout year in a jar or bottle.

 Materials Needed:
Empty small jar (like a baby food jar) or plastic water bottle with cap

Hot glue gun or Epoxy glue

Small plastic toy animal (depending on scene)

White rocks for winter scene

Glitter (small cuts of ribbon can be used)

Water

Food coloring, if desired

Directions:
Use hot glue gun to glue rock and animal to the bottom of jar.
Fill with water and add food coloring if desired.
Spoon in some glitter and glue lid onto jar.
Shake to make it snow!

Other Themes:

Birthday: Find cake toppers such as balloons and use colorful confetti, ribbon or glitter.

St. Patrick’s Day: Use green food coloring, green glitter and you may find small items such as shamrocks to glue to bottom.

Easter:  Use a cross to glue to bottom with gold glitter or use red to represent the blood. Pastel colors can also be used with any Easter confetti.

Designing and making snowflakes involves many important  concepts at all ages.  Beyond being fun, children experience shapes, motor skills, following directions, creativity, symmetry and spatial skills.  I was shocked at how many students in my fifth grade class volunteered to help  make snowflakes for a bulletin board, they loved it.  I thought that they would be “over” that!

With my younger children I demonstrate how to make a large snowflake and then they decorate it.  Then, they attempt their own allowing them to explore and discover the world of shapes and symmetry. Please note that the “snowflakes” are truly unique and may not look anything like a snowflake.

A FEW “FLAKEY” IDEAS:

3D Snowflake: For older children and adults, I found this site that teaches “How to Make a 3D Paper Snowflake.”

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-3D-Paper-Snowflake

Read A Biography:  Snowflake Bentley stated  “Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.”   He photographed the first snow crystal and shared that no two snowflakes were the same.

Symmetry: Look for symmetry in nature starting with butterflies, bugs, leaves and bee-hives. For older children,  you may ask them if snowflakes are symmetrical in nature. (The answer is sometimes, the most common snowflakes are not symmetrical.)

The Life of a Snowflake:  This site is for older students to follow the life and growth of a snowflake. Fascinating!

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/primer/primer.htm

Growing up in the Arizona desert is sunny and wonderful, but not when you try to explain the concept of seasons and  winter to children!  Traveling north to see, touch and play in the icy snow is always a joyous and exciting event for our family, but we know plenty of children who have not been exposed to snow, winter and winter sports.

So, how can we incorporate this foreign concept of falling snowflakes, winter boots and gliding down the mountain slopes?  The first part of the winter series is dedicated to winter sports and will continue with further crafts and fun soon.

First of all, and most obvious is to visit your local ice skating arena.  They have special classes for large groups, skating lessons and field trips.  For the sports enthusiast you can visit during hockey practice or games.  We wanted to take our son to the professional hockey games, but know it is way too loud for his liking (and mine!)

Find the snow!  This year our zoo, church, city park and train park all had special events where they brought in snow piles for the children to devour.  What a fun and free (except the zoo) way to play in the snow.

Visit the library.  Let’s never forget the powerful magic of words.  Check out books about the winter olympics, winter sports and  famous athletes.  Which sport would you like to try?

We love boxes.  Boxes transform into anything your child imagines, so why not let them decide what to make that can be used in winter.  I am guessing that a bobsled box would be perfect entertainment for an afternoon.

I should have invented carpet skates.  The most genious and simple invention if you have carpet in your home.  Before we found carpet skates for about ten dollars (I think at Toys R Us)  I would tape wax sandwich bags around the kid’s feet and they would pretend to skate around.  They had a blast.  I am sure this may sound crazy to those of you in parts of the world that have real ice outside your front door.

Technology allows us to explore many exciting new things. For example, record the winter games on television and watch as a family as you enjoy a cup of hot cocoa or even Icees.  I am coming around to video games and I know the concern most parents have about these mindless types of activities.  With that said, I love the Wii snowboarding game and have been caught shredding and grinding the slope!

Use your imagination.  Since we cannot snowboard down the real slopes, we made our couch into a mini hill to use with our cardboard boards.  I had pipe cleaners in the crafts area, so we taped them on for the straps.

This little piggy said, “Wheeeee!”

This video shows you how to make a letter sound recognition game to use at home or in the classroom. The bean bag toss game is a valentine theme but could be made for every day use by using another shape besides a heart.  You can adapt this game for older children by writing blends and digraphs (ex: str, bl, sh) or high frequency words on the hearts.