Snowman Themed Winter Celebrations

Last year I decided to skip the traditional holidays at school and have a Snowman Theme celebration instead. I am so glad I did that! Here is one of the activities that I did with my kids. I think you’d have fun doing it in your classroom.

A few weeks before you start, make sure to gather several snowman books. I just go to the library and get every book I can get my hands on!

TIP: If you can, start reading the books a week ahead of time, so your students will be familiar with the content. That way, you can just refer to the books or read them quickly if you are pressed for time!
And now for our activity!

Snowman S’mores

We started our week making snowman s’mores!

I read one of my Snowman books to the kids, and told them that we were going to be making our own snowman that day.

Here are the ingredients I used:

• Paper plates (1 for each student)
• Plastic spoons (I had 2 per table of 6 students.)
• Graham Crackers (1 per student)
• Large Marshmallows (2 per student)
• Decorating gel or other cookie-decorating item that you choose.

Here’s how I assembled the Snowman:

• Put a Graham cracker on the plate;
• Put some frosting on the cracker;
• Put a marshmallow on the frosting;
• Put more frosting on the top of that marshmallow;
• Put a second marshmallow on top of the frosting;
• Decorate the face and body of the snowman with the decorating gel.
  

If you want to incorporate a WRITING LESSON to this activity, TIP 3 is very important!

TIP 3: Model making the Snowman then guide the children step by step to make their own. Have them tell you what the first step is, what comes next, etc. The reason for so much control (rather than just letting them go at their own pace) is to help them internalize the steps that they take to build their snowman.

This step will make it much easier for the kids to write about their experience later on!

After making and eating our treats, it was time for writing a recipe for their parents.

As you can see, I had a sheet in which they wrote the ingredients they used, the utensils, and the directions. I only wrote those words on the board to help with the spelling. They did everything else on their own.

Make sure to remind students to use transition words (first, next, then, after that, finally) to help the readers understand the sequence of the recipe.

In the end, the kids ate their treats and decorated their Snowman S’mores sheet.

I hope you’ll try this activity in your class. I’d love to know how it goes, and if you have any tips to improve upon what I did.

Happy Holidays!

Adriana