Winter in Cold Places A winter unit study Ages 4–7
Sap and Sugaring
$5.99 · One-time purchase
Snow is still on the ground, but something is already moving inside the trees. This week we learn when sap runs, boil it down, and pour hot syrup onto snow.
Page four
The four books
Read them aloud in any order, and read a favorite twice. If your library doesn’t have one of these, another good book on the same subject works just as well.
- Sugaring Time — Kathryn Lasky
- Maple Syrup Season — Ann Purmell
- Pancakes for Breakfast — Tomie dePaola
- Little House in the Big Woods — Laura Ingalls Wilder
The books aren’t included. Most libraries have them.
Page six
The science lesson
Last summer’s sugar is on the move inside the tree.
In late winter a maple starts sending the sugar it stored in its roots and trunk up toward the buds, so they’ll have food to open. Last summer’s leaves made that sugar from sunlight, air, and water.
It starts with what the grown-up needs to know, in plain words. Then there’s something to try together at the table, and one question to ask afterward.
“Why does sap drip only on some days?”
And the rest of the week
- The poems
- One short poem to learn by heart (William Wordsworth, from “Written in March”) and one to enjoy hearing (Emily Dickinson).
- The activity
- Tap a tree, if you have one. One tap takes only a small share of a big tree’s sap, so it doesn’t hurt the tree.
- The craft
- Sugar on snow. Boiling takes out even more water, and the cold snow sets it into soft, chewy candy.
- Math
- Two pages: “Forty cups, one cup” and “Reading the week.”
- The copywork page
- Three sizes to choose from, from the single word “sap” up to “The cock is crowing.” Practice makes progress.
- Outside
- A page for spending some time outside observing nature, one look a day, with room for a word, a number, or a tiny drawing.
- A devotion, five days
- A verse, a sentence, and a “Thank you God for ___,” line each day. Psalm 104:16 · Psalm 119:103 · Proverbs 24:13 · Genesis 8:22 · Psalm 34:8. The verse to learn this week is Psalm 34:8.
- Buttermilk pancakes
- A big breakfast for the last day, with warm syrup on top. Makes about sixteen pancakes.
- Coloring pages
- Two simple, hand-drawn pages to color.
- What you will need
- Four books from the library, a printer, and things most homes already have: a weather app or the forecast, a heavy pot and forks, a pan of snow or crushed ice, a measuring cup and sugar, pancake ingredients, and 1/2 cup syrup (see the recipe).
Take the Sap and Sugaring unit.
One purchase for the whole unit as a print-ready PDF. No account and no login. Your download is ready as soon as you check out, and it’s yours to print as often as you like for the children in your own house.
Part of a set of six
Winter in Cold Places
$24 · $35.94 bought separately
Sap and Sugaring is one of six units for snowy, cold winters. The set adds Snow, Tracks, Bare Trees, Wool and Warmth, and The Light Returning, one unit for each week of winter. You get six separate PDFs.
Here it is.
All five days of Apples, yours to print. A copy is on its way to your inbox as well — check the spam folder if it isn’t there in a few minutes.
Start with Monday: cut an apple across the middle instead of down through the stem, and look for the star.