I cannot tell you how thrilled we are at our house this week to finally have gotten some decent snow that stuck to the ground. It seems we have had a rather pathetic 2 winters here in the midwest. Nonetheless, we finally got our snow and made our fun into a little learning adventure.
We spent some time cuddled up on the sofa reading Snowflake Bentley and The Secret Life of a Snowflake. I highly recommend both of these books. They are wonderful!
We took some time to follow the directions in The Secret Life of a Snowflake on how to properly fold the paper to make a hexagonal snowflake and took a moment to review what a hexagon is. We learned that most snowflakes are hexagons having 6 branches coming from the center. We also learned that once in awhile they have only three branches.
The story of William Bentley inspired my son to ask me to find a copy of his book of snowflake photos from throughout his life that was published shortly before his death. He felt that his snowflake pictures were his gift to the world.
Our day could not be complete without some snowflake quesadillas and a yogurt snowman. This kids thought these were fun. I just warmed up the tortillas for 15 seconds in the microwave to soften them. I then folded them and cut them out. I put the cut tortilla in the fry pan for a minute or two to brown. Then, so the cheese wouldn't leak out on the bottom, I put a round tortilla in the pan with cheese on it and placed the cut tortilla on top.
I even got in on the snowflake quesadilla, but I think mine looks a bit more southwestern than snowy. LOL!
This was such a fun learning day. But it didn't stop with lunch. We next took our study time to the backyard. We brought out some black paper and our magnifying glasses to catch snowflakes as they fell.
We found some lovely little masterpieces. One thing we learned while reading today is that some snowflakes are shaped like pencils. We say these mixed in with others that almost looked like flowers. I attempted to take a few pictures with my camera and a magnifying glass. Most sadly did not turn out. But here are 2 of them.
I hope that wherever you live, you take some time to enjoy the snow either from your own backyard or one of these great books.
How wonderful to be able to look a the snowflakes up close. I will be sharing this post on the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page and Pinterest board.
ReplyDeleteThank you! it was such a blessing to finally get some snow so we could do this mini unit study and go outside to view the snowflakes up close.
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