Winter in Cold Places A winter unit study Ages 4–7
Snow
$5.99 · One-time purchase
We catch a falling flake on a cold black card, find out that snow is mostly air, and make snow ice cream on the last day.
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.
- The Story of Snow — Mark Cassino with Jon Nelson
- Over and Under the Snow — Kate Messner
- Snowflake Bentley — Jacqueline Briggs Martin
- The Snowy Day — Ezra Jack Keats
The books aren’t included. Most libraries have them.
Page six
The science lesson
One jar of snow shows that fresh snow is mostly air.
Snow starts high in a cloud, when water vapor freezes onto a tiny speck of dust. More vapor freezes on, and the crystal grows.
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.
“What filled the rest of the jar before the snow melted?”
And the rest of the week
- The poems
- One short poem to learn by heart (Traditional nursery rhyme) and one to enjoy hearing (Christina Rossetti).
- The activity
- Catch one flake. A warm card melts a flake almost instantly.
- The craft
- Make a paper snowflake. Six layers make six arms, just like a real snow crystal.
- Math
- Two pages: “How deep is the snow?” and “Ten cups of snow, one cup of water.”
- The copywork page
- Three sizes to choose from, from the single word “snow” up to “The north wind doth blow.” 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. Job 37:6 · Psalm 147:16 · Job 38:22 · Psalm 51:7 · Isaiah 1:18. The verse to learn this week is Isaiah 1:18.
- Snow ice cream
- Ready in five minutes and gone in three. Catch clean snow in a bowl while it’s falling.
- 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: black paper or a dark mitten, a magnifying glass or phone camera, clear jar and tape, ruler or yardstick, thin paper and scissors, large bowl, milk, sugar, vanilla, and mittens.
Take the Snow 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
Snow is one of six units for snowy, cold winters. The set adds Tracks, Bare Trees, Wool and Warmth, The Light Returning, and Sap and Sugaring, 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.