A week on Snow!

Crystal Trees - Time for a bit of mad science!  We are growing our own crystal trees using a fabulous formula I found. (Look here on this  blog.)

First we got our trees ready (I cut simple tree shapes from cereal boxes, slit half way up from the bottom of one and then from the top of the other), then Ms. Sara poured the smelly (it has ammonia in it - yuckers!) solution in the bowl.  We carefully placed our bowls on the window sill...

In just a few minutes we saw crystals start to form!  See them below?  A smidge of white on the edge of the purple?

Here is a few minutes later, more crystals!

By the end of class, our trees looked like this...

Here are our trees the next morning before class...

Pretty darn cool, huh!  By the way, they are extremely fragile and all the little crystal fluff just falls right off when bumped.

 Fluffy Snowflakes - We created these lovely snowflakes using fake snow I picked up on super clearance.  I just cut asterisk type snowflakes out of cereal boxes, the kiddos painted them with glue and then sprinkled the fake snow on.

Blocks - I love it when the kiddos build castles with the blocks!  Yahoo for imagination!

Popsicle Stick Snowflakes - I wanted the kiddos to spatter these with white paint using a toothbrush, but I couldn't find the special place I put the art toothbrushes.  Drat!  So the kiddos dabbed on some white paint with Q-tips, not nearly as fabulous, but the flakes are still cheerful.

In my youngster class, I had them paint the snowflakes with glitter glue.

 
Snow Painting - Using squirt bottles full of water and food coloring, the kiddos went to town decorating the snow in the yard.  They also painted the snow cave and our snowman.