Snowman Families

This was a last minute change of plans for my Friday Buddies activity. My Grade One class is learning about families this term, and this week I taught them the poem Snowman Family by Valerie Schiffer. And then Thursday evening I came across this project on Artsonia and knew I just had to do it.  So when I came in Friday morning I quickly gathered supplies for this new lesson.

We had already discussed the difference between our immediate family and extended family.  Students were asked to recreate their own immediate families out of snowmen and to consider the size of each family member when creating them.

To create a snowman the students used regular white chalk to draw the 3 circles of the snowperson and went over each circle 2 or 3 times.  When each snowperson was done they used a finger to gently smudge the chalk (using a circular motion) into the inside of the circles. 

Then they used oil pastels to create the noses and eyes - making sure to keep the noses within the shape of each head.  Next they cut out each snowperson.  They used templates to trace and cut out the circle and base of the snowglobe.  Then they coloured in the bottom of the snowglobe and added snowflakes.  In hindsight I should have either used white oil pastel or white crayon to colour in the snowglobe as you can see that the chalk left a lot of smudges.

Here are a few more samples:

Snowmen

This art project was based on the book Snowmen At Night by Caralyn Buehner.  It was an activity we did with our Grade 4 Big Buddy class.  To encourage the little ones to make their snowmen big enough, we started by giving them circle templates to trace the outline of their snowman shape.  White chalk was then used to make a thick shade of white on the inside of the snowman shape.  Using their fingers to rub and spread the chalk towards the center of the circle shapes gave the snowmen some dimension.  Oil pastels were then used to draw and colour on scarves, hats, faces, and snowflakes. 

Grade One Snowmen