Winter Wednesday
Week 2 Snow
(Even if you do not have snow, take a winter nature walk!)
1. Read chapter two in Discover Nature in Winter. There are so many great ideas for studying snow in this chapter that you will find at least two or three that you will want to try with your family. Use your highlighter or sticky notes to mark the places that you find with interesting information or ideas for including in your winter nature study.
2. Our family has decided to complete the “Snow Produces Water" activity on page 28. Please feel free to complete any of the suggested activities in chapter two of the book and then share your experiences in a blog entry.
3. Don't forget to come back and put your blog entry on Mr. Linky. The more entries the better! If you do not have a blog, you can leave a comment about your winter nature study for all to read as well.
If you do not have the book and you would like to complete a snow activity, here are two ideas.
Filtering SnowThis chapter in the book contains an explanation of how a snowflake forms and descriptions of the different kinds of snowflakes. We may as a family complete a few more of the activities in this chapter like the “Snow Melt and Trees” activity and the “Dripless Snow” activity as well. Now we just have to hope we get some significant snow soon so we can do our observations.
Place a clean wide-mouthed container outside during a snowstorm. Collect the snow and then bring it inside the house to melt. After your snow has melted, filter the water through a coffee filter. Use a hand lens to examine the particles left in the filter. If you have a microscope you can look at the melted snow even more closely.
Snow Produces Water
Fill a measuring cup with fresh snow and let it melt. See how many cups full of snow it takes to fill a measuring cup with the melted water. Repeat the experiment with old snow and record any differences in your nature journal.
I found some information on collecting and identifying different kinds of snowflakes. Although it looks as if the NASA project is complete you can still follow the instructions as a winter activity in your family. Here is a video to explain the process of collecting and identifying snowflakes.
Here is a link to print out the worksheet: Basic Worksheet and Detailed Worksheet
If you do not have any snow to observe, remember that you can use the ideas from my winter nature study blog entry as an alternative. Also you can go back to week one and complete the color walk activity if you didn't finish that activity already.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
