Snowmen Charades

I was going to have my first grade students do the styrofoam printmaking lesson for Snowmen at Night. And then. Well. Then I met them. They are totally not doing that. Nope. Not happening.

We read snowmen at night. Before reading, I told the students that they had to look for a few things in the book. The color of snow and the snowmen's arms.

After we read, I asked them what color the snow was. Some remembered it was not purely white. Then we talked about the arms. On the board I drew two snowmen bodies, just bodies, no arms, noses, etc. One was skiing and one was throwing a s snowball. I asked the students which was which (trick question!) and they couldn't tell. So we talked about the importance of body language. Which part of the snowman can tell us what they are doing? Ah, the arms.

This is a three part lesson.

Day one we read the book. They went back to their seats and drew a horizon line across the paper. Straight if snowman doing a flat activity (ice skaing, snow ball fight). Hills for sledding, skiing or snow tubing. Each table had a mix of white paint and a tiny bit of color. They dabbed it on with a sponge and we let it dry till next week.

Second class we added tree or house backgrounds. I gave them square and triangle sponges and showed a few ways to dab the shapes.

Third class we tore three circles for snowman bodies. We overlapped and glued them on.

Construction paper crayons were used to embellish.

Student work