Snowman Unit Study

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When my children were young, I did a lot of unit studies. With my in-home daycare, I have also always used themes.
One of my favorites each year is our Snowman unit study. Through the years, I cannot even begin to count how many different activities we have done during this unit. I found ways to incorporate pretty much every subject into this simple, broad theme.
I’m going to share some of my favorites with you and I hope that you can find a fun activity or two to share with the children in your life during your own snowman unit study.

Math

1. Egg carton counting snowmen: Cut out a number of individual egg carton cups. Write numbers on a piece of paper and have them practice building snowmen using the correct number of egg carton cups.

2. Large snowman with numbers and beanbags: You can use this to practice number recognition, simple addition/subtraction, or even multiplication/division.

3. Cut out a snowman. Cut out some hats with numbers on them. Set out a jar of buttons. The child then puts a hat on the snowman and counts out that many buttons and places them on the snowman. When done, dump off the buttons and start again with a different hat.

Science

1. Baking soda snowman experiment:
You will need: Baking soda, white vinegar, water, glitter, google eyes, and eyedroppers

Mix a small bit of water into a pretty good size pile of baking soda, add glitter, and more water as needed. Add enough until it’s a crumbly, but packable dough.
Next, form the dough into a ball and add googly eyes.
Then, put it into the freezer for a little while. The longer in the freezer, the longer it’ll take to “melt” him.
When ready for the FUN part, remove from the freezer and put on a shallow dish–I use a small glass cake dish–to catch the mess, I mean “science”.
Next, give each child a bowl of vinegar and an eyedropper, and step back and listen to and watch and smell the fizz and bubbles.
If your child is a little older, it’s a great time to talk about the chemistry here or the states of matter, or have them research to find the answer!

2. Expanding snowman with Alka Seltzer:
Supplies: Baggies, permanent markers, Alka Seltzer tablets, and snow(or crushed ice–I used my blender and it worked fine)

First, draw a snowman face on the plastic baggie and fill it with your snow. Don’t fill too full, because it will EXPAND!
Then add 3 tablets of Alka Seltzer to your baggie, seal it up tight, sit back and watch! I kept mine in a bowl, just in case. Over the next 30-60 minutes, you will see it just keep expanding.
If your child is older, it’s fun to do some research into the how and why!

3. Packing peanuts melting snowman:
Supplies: biodegradable packing peanuts, markers, small bowl, and water

First, draw a face on each packing peanut. Fill a small bowl with room temperature water. Add one snowman at a time to the water and watch it “disappear” right before your eyes.
Again, if an older child, have them research why and how this works!

Science

1. Build a habitat diorama for where snowmen would live.
2. Print a blank map and color the areas where it snows.
3. Draw the kind of home a snowman can live in. A good time to talk about climate and insulation.

Language Arts

1. Snowman poetry: If stumped as to poetry ideas, check out my blog post:
https://learningisawayoflife.com/poetry-with-children/

2. Creative writing: Let them finish the sentence “If I Were A Snowman”……and draw pictures to go with it!
3. Give the child a picture of a snowman and let the child write about what the snowman is thinking or doing

Reading

This list was tough to narrow down to 3, but here’s my final list!
1. The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. A great wordless book that is so much fun!

2. The Biggest Snowman Ever by Steven Kroll

3. Little Critter Just A Snowman by Mercer Mayer

Physical Education

1. Snowman Dance: Have child dance as if a snowman. Can even turn this into a freeze dance game.
2. Snowman Beanbag Toss: Homemade or store-bought. Either will provide some fun!

3. Action Song: I’m A Little Snowman

I’m a little snowman short and fat (Stand with arms in circle above stomach)
Here are my buttons(Point down front of shirt)
Here is my hat (Pat top of head)
When the sun comes out (Make sun with hands in circle above head)
I cannot play (Shake head “no”)
Slowly I just melt away (Bend slowly down to floor)


I’m a little snowman, short and fat.
Here is my broomstick, here is my hat.
When the sun comes out, I melt away,
Down, down, down, down — whoops!  I’m a puddle!

4. Of course, if possible, the best exercise is to get outside and play in the snow!
My blog post here talks about the benefits of getting outside in the winter:

https://learningisawayoflife.com/do-you-want-to-build-a-snowman/

I am not going to list each snowman craft that we’ve done throughout the years; I will save those for another post.
Hopefully, you can find a snowman activity to incorporate into your life. These have added so much fun to mine!