Easy Woven Snowflakes

I saw this idea today at Catholic Icing, and since everything schoolish is about snow and the Arctic this week, I thought is was the perfect project to do together. The fact I had everything on hand to make these woven snowflakes was a big plus, too!

Needed:

corrugated cardboard

ruler

pencil

scissors

yarn
I cut my cardboard the size of a dessert plate and then drew lines across the circle, going through the center point of the circle for every line.

I also labeled the lines: A on one side of the line--A on the opposite side of the circle. This helped my 4 and 5 year olds keep this from getting too tangled.

Cut slits into the cardboard on the pencil lines, about 1/2 inch long. Weave your yarn back and forth along the pencil lines.
The letters on the cardboard helped Kimmy, 4, do a perfect job on her snowflake.
This is the back of Luke's snowflake.
Ta da!!
When the big kids get done with school, I will have them make some "fancy" flakes!
This is Gracie's "ta da" face. :-)

Borax snowflake fun

We have done this experiment before so I knew it was just the thing to get the kids thinking after the long Christmas break.

We are also learning about snow and the polar regions of the world, so it was a perfect fit.

All you need is:

a large mouthed jar,

borax,

boiling water,

food coloring (if desired),

pipe cleaners,

string,

popscicle stick.

Bring water to a boil and pour into your jar.....parents should do this step and make sure the kids are safe while stirring in the borax.

Make a super saturated solution of borax in the water.

This was the science portion on this activity.

We learning that a super saturatedsolution is refers to a solution that contains more of the dissolved material than could be dissolved by the water under normal circumstances.

This simply means you can see borax at the bottom of the jar when it has reached the supersaturation point.

After mixing the borax and water we added a little food coloring....this is very cool, since the water is so "thick" with borax.
Make a snowflake out of pipecleaners. I used 6 pieces of pipe cleaner and then twisted them together to form a snowflake. Mark made a little "guy", Gracie made a ribbon shape. Make sure the pipe cleaner can be suspended in the jar without touching the sides of the jar.
Tie one end of a piece of string to the popscicle stick and the other end to the pipe cleaner shape.

Suspend the "snowflake in the jar and wait.

The crystals form within a few hours....perfect for a wintery afternoon.

This is how our jars looked after 3 hours.

Our crystals had grown so large, Kimmy got to remove the only one that could be removed without getting stuck at the top of the jar.

Daddy came to the rescue and managed to get the others out of their jars without going outside to smash the glass.....hooray for Daddy.

Quite stuck!!

They are so cool, and very hard and durable.

We had a few old ones on our Christmas tree we made 3 years ago and they still look just as nice.

This photo doesn't do justice to the sparkle our "snowflakes" give off!!

Winter Scene Handprint Art

We are getting a little head start on our "winter, snow, and arctic" school units
which will start next week.
I saw some Christmas snowman ornaments using handprints but I just wanted to make a winter scene. It was quick and easy and I had everything I needed already in the house.
You need:
white paint-(I used acrylic paint)
black construction paper
sharpie markers
marker that write on black paper
glitter (We really love glitter)

First we painted our hands white and "stamped" them onto the black paper.
After the handprint dried, we turned the fingers into snowmen.
Using the sharpie markers we added faces and scarves and hats.

After making our snowmen, we embelished our pictures with glue and glitter.

I added a shooting star to Kimmy's picture and she added the glitter.
Gracie used glue fingerprints to make snowflakes. She then added glitter to make the snow "shine".

Cute, cute, cute!!

And more importantly, easy, easy, easy!!

A Preschool Snowflake Masterpiece

Perfect temperature for a perfect artistic snowy masterpiece.
I first saw this snowflake painting on the Frugal Family Fun Blog.
Materials needed are:
canvas board-(I was surprised they were so cheap--we have never used them before)
a few different shades of blue paint (or color of choice)
masking tape
For Kimberly's (3 years old) snowflake, I first made an X with masking tape, making sure to press the edges down firmly.

I then added a horizontal strip of tape and then used small pieces of tape for the ends of the snowflake.

Place the different colors of paint on a palette---we always us a plate.

Then paint, paint, paint.

I stressed to the kids to try and not really mix all the colors but try and make a swirl effect with the paint and to cover all of the canvas.

Becky prepared Luke's "fancy" canvas!

I just love these colors together.

Completely cover the canvas with paint. I also had the kids paint the edges of the canvas so it would look nice hanging up without a frame.

We let the paint dry overnight. This was a great lesson in patience.

Peel off the masking tape. It came off quite easily.

TA-DA!!

Great job, Luke!!

I then outlined the snowflakes with black sharpie marker.

It is quite a striking effect!!

It is winter artwort I am very happy to hang on the wall!!

Snowy Handprint Tree

Since the temperature didn't get much above 10 degrees F. today, it was perfect weather for bringing a winter scene inside the house.

I found this idea at Kaboose.

We had everything needed to make this Snowy Handprint Tree:

construction paper(blue and white)

brown paint

glue

salt

First, cut a piece of white paper with a curvy cut. This is the snowy botton of your picture.

Glue this to the botton of the blue construction paper.

Now the fun part, make a brown handprint in the center of the blue paper.

Then use your fingers to "paint" a tree trunk to the botton of the "branches".

If you have impatient children whom are eager to get to the next step.....

they can blow-dry their paint dry.

I liked using clear school glue for the next step.

I thought the kids would use their fingers in the glue, but Luke refused to touch it, so I got out a paint brush.

First, paint the finger branches with glue and then sprinkle the glue with the salt.

This is closely related to glitter dump sprinkling--just as messy--but just as fun.

Dump the salt off the glue to reveal beautiful snowy tree branches.

Luke also made snowflakes in the blue sky.

I love Gracie's "tongue of concentration"!

I also love the pretty results of our wintery trees!

Check out more We Made It activities at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.