Do you want to build a snowman? *joke* Well Frozen aside, in this post I share with you how to build a snowman with kids. Playing in snow is lots of fun and provides a fabulous sensory experience for all those who are privileged enough to be able to enjoy it and so getting children to build a snowman would have to be quite the highlight of things to do when your around snow.
Where we live it doesn’t snow and to reach anywhere that does snow we have to pack up the car and drive a good couple of hours from home. With both Possum (aged 4.5 years) and Boo (1.5 years) excited by the idea of touching snow, we found our little family on a wonderful snow holiday!
Of course there were a few things we all wanted to do while we were up at the snow. Snow angles, tobogganing, eat handfuls of clean snow and of course, both girls were excited to build a snowman. We even bought a carrot with us for it’s nose!
Why real snow is great for a child’s learning and development
Here is just a few reasons why I think children should be given the opportunity to experience snow and how it can benefit their learning and development.
- It’s very cold to touch – temperature
- It can be compacted to be hard or be light and soft – texture
- It melts quickly when heated by the hands – science of solid turning to a liquid
- It can be quite easily moulded – creating shapes or characters in snow
- Endless number of games can be played in snow – social skills and more!
How to build a snowman with kids
I know what you’re thinking, there is really no right or wrong way to build a snowman and you’re right, anything goes, however, we were conscious of the fact that we were building a snowman with very little children and wanted to make the process as easy and enjoyable for them as possible. To build a snowman with kids who are little you might be interested to learn what we did.
You will need –
- snow
- suitable clothing (gloves etc)
- sticks
- rocks or seeds x2
- hat
- scarf
Start by finding a safe and open space of snow to build your snowman and begin creating a small snowball of snow. It’s a good idea to compress it a little between the hands.
Place the snowball on the ground and begin dragging all the snow around it up and over the snowball. This will increase the size of the snowball and create a body-like shape. Continue to do this until it is of a suitable height for your child.
Having little kids we chose not to make it in what might be considered traditional, with three varying sized snowballs on top of each other. Instead, ours looks a little more like a mountain shaped body with a snowball shape for the head. Possum loved it because it looked like Olaf.
Once the snowball head was positioned securely on top of the larger mountain shaped snowball we were ready to start decorating. We found some twigs for arms, a twig for it’s mouth, large tree seeds for it’s eyes and of course, a lovely long orange carrot for it’s nose.
Once the facial features were added the snowman almost came to life! The girls were both so very excited and had fun talking to it and smoothing out the surface of it’s body.
We added a lovely wrap around it’s neck and Possum gave her new snowman friend a woollen hat to keep his head warm. He really did seem to come alive, although Boo seemed very keen to eat the carrot (see pictured above). It was really lots of fun and such a lovely thing to do as a family. We were laughing and working together to create something special.
Have you ever made a snowman with your children?
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