When you live in a winter climate like northern Canada, the opportunities to do activities related to snow are endless. We try to build weather-related snow activities into our classes wherever possible. We teach in upper elementary, but we’ve used some of these activities with our younger buddies and some we’ve challenged ourselves. Come check out these snow activities that will keep you busy all winter.
Snow Activities for Language Arts Class
While we have many different books at the bottom of this post, we also include some snow and winter-related reading in our lessons.
Reading Comprehension
What do your students know about permafrost? We created reading passages that specifically teach different reading comprehension skills, work on vocabulary and word parts and help students learn to investigate text for context clues. The set comes with mini-lessons and has a printable and digital version. The digital version includes loose text that can be read by your text-to-speech apps so students can work toward independence.
Check out the permafrost reading activities for free on TpT.
Reading for Information
Logic puzzles look like they are just for fun, but they actually teach several reading skills. Students have to read for information, make inferences, problem-solve, and think critically. Our logic puzzles can be done on paper, but we also have a digital version that uses Google Slides.
Winter Logic Puzzles are available on TpT ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN).
If you would like to try one of our logic puzzles for free, we have one in our Resource Library. Ninjas on our email list have access to the Resource Library, but we can send one directly to your inbox when you sign up for our email list.
Writing About Winter
Our writing prompts are written so that students have a selection of topics and writing genres to choose from each day. Not only does this prevent students from using the excuse “I don’t know what to write about,” but students can practice specific styles of writing. Our prompts come in paper and digital versions, so students can write by hand on paper or choose another place to do their writing (and if you use the digital version, it saves on paper). This set includes ten days of prompts, and since each day has three prompts, that means you get thirty!
Winter Writing Prompts are available on TpT ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN).
Snow Activities for Your Art Class
We have plenty of Winter Art Projects available on TpT ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN). These make a nice alternative to Christmas projects because you can use them with all your students, even the ones who don’t celebrate Christmas. More importantly, you can do a variety of projects over a few months instead of being restricted to a single month.
Snowmen With Character
One of our favourite projects happened by accident. We didn’t have enough clay for the whole class to make the project we had planned (shout out to whoever helped themselves to our clay order). That meant we had about half the amount of clay we had wanted.
We asked students what they wanted to do with the clay. One student suggested we make snowmen, but the best part was that everyone could make their snowman have a unique character. Students added details by painting, adding craft accessories, and just being super creative overall.
You can have this lesson for free when you’re a member of our email list. You can find it in our Resource Library. If you’re not on the email list yet, you can sign up, and we’ll send the lesson directly to your inbox.
Melted Snowmen Buddies
To prep the materials, start by collecting white paper scraps from your school’s workroom. You can reuse all the little strips of clean white paper that get cut off. Cut these strips into squares. Each student will need a small piece of black paper (construction paper or cardstock works great) and a small piece of orange paper, which will be the eyes, mouth, and nose. They will also need half of an 8.5 by 11-inch page (hamburger style) as the background. We tend to use blue, green, or black as the background.
If you do this snow activity as a buddy activity, the older students can do the cutting (especially the circles). One year, when we did not have older student helpers, we made a sheet of circles using a Cricut machine, which was much faster and easier for students. They were able to cut the carrot shape because of its straight lines, and it required less detail.
Paste the little white squares onto the paper. They can overlap. Use the black to cut out small circles and paste these on as a face in the centre of the white squares as if you’re looking down on a puddle of melted snowmen. Cut the orange paper into a triangle to make a carrot nose.
If your students have extra time, they can use other scrap pieces to add details, like a hat, scarf, or broom (but we did have to tell one student not to put a cigarette — oh my!).
Fingerprint Snowmen
We have an easy activity in another blog post. If you want to make fingerprint snowmen with paint, markers and paper, check out this blog post, How to Create Fingerprint Art Projects.
Snowmen Character Cans
Another great activity we’ve done year after year is painting cans and turning them into characters. This blog post includes the instructions to make snowmen and other characters. Read the post, How to Make Recycled Can Characters.
Collaborative Posters
We love using collaborative posters when students need a reminder that we need to be working together if we’re all going to get along for the entire school year. Our poster sets include versions with 18, 24, or 36 pieces, so they work with almost any size class. Students colour their own pieces, and then the pieces are reassembled into one poster. The set also included a follow-up activity you can use for early finishers or to extend the lesson.
Let it Snow Collaborative Poster is available on TpT ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN).
Snowy Day Collaborative Poster is available on TpT ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN).
Make Digital Snowflakes
We’ve been testing out and trying different digital snowflake makers to see what works. These are some of the best ones we’ve found. We try to avoid sites that are covered in ads, so if you notice the sites are getting clunky, please let us know.
Paper Snowflake Maker: This one is our favourite.
Digital Snowflake Maker: This one is simpler (if you read the instructions), but the designs are less intricate.
Books to Add to Your Snow Activities
Remember that students of all ages enjoy being read to, so just because your students are getting older doesn’t mean you should stop reading to them. These are some of our favourite snow books. There are no links, and we hope you’ll support your local bookstore.
If you are looking to build your read-aloud into your language arts lessons, you should read 15 Ways to Engage Readers During Your Read-Aloud.
Ten Ways to Hear Snow by Cathy Camper
The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder by Mark Cassino
Snow by Uri Shulevitz
The Snow Globe Family by Jane O’Connor and S.D. Schindler
Snow Globe Wishes by Erin Dealey and Claire Shorrock
Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Mary Azarian, and we recommend his book Snowflakes in Photographs by W. A. Bentley.
A Thing Called Snow by Yuval Zommer
Snow Sounds: An Onomatopoeic Story by David A. Johnson
A Snowman Named Just Bob by Mark Molton
Snowflakes Fall by Patricia Maclachlan and Steven Kellogg
Blizzard by John Rocco
Looking for More Snow Activities?
We have another post that features all our free winter activities. You might be able to find more projects to do there. Read Free Winter Classroom Activities Worth Scooping Up. We also have You’ll Love These Exciting Winter Classroom Activities. What are your favourite snow activities? We’d love to hear all about them in the comments below.
