We could not celebrate snow without spending some time reading about penguins.  Our favorite penguin book is The Little Penguin by A.J. Wood.  We made snow play dough with silver glitter and played with our  penguins in the snow!

"Our people, the Inuit, call it NANUK.  White bear, ice bear, sea bear, others say.  It's a bear, all right, but not like any other!  It's a POLAR BEAR, made for our frozen world!"

We have become very interested in polar bears in our house.  This book, Ice Bear:  In the Steps of the Polar Bear by Nicola Davies, was the perfect story for us.  It brought the polar bear to life for us.  It helped us to learn about and be amazed by this magnificent and powerful, yet gentle creature.

For painting day, we did wet-on-wet watercolors.  We then cut our painted paper into icicle shapes and strung them up with yarn.  

The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett is an Arctic twist on the classic Goldilocks story.  In it, an Inuit girl comes upon the igloo of three snow bears.  She tries out their breakfast bowls, boots, and beds in search of the "just right".  We made our own "Just Right Porridge" to go along with the story.  Actually, it was homemade granola!  Not too soft and not too crunchy...just right!

Our first book of last week was Ollie's Ski Trip by Elsa Beskow.  Ollie is a little boy that goes on a big adventure into the winter woods on his new skis.  What he finds along his way will surely fire the imagination of any child.  We made snowball cookies to go along with our story because it was baking day and because snowball cookies are almost as fun as real snowballs!

"The farm is ready
for down quilts of snow,
the shh-shh of the wind."

​While reading  Sleep Tight Farm by Eugenie Doyle, we were filled with warm and comforting feelings.  This was just what we needed on this cold winter day.  We loved taking this close look at a farm as it gets ready for the snow of winter.

So, this needle felted wool snowflake handicraft seemed to be the perfect match for this story and this day.  It was warm and comforting as well!    

"Of all the forms of water, the tiny six pointed crystals of ice called snow, that form in such quantities with the cloud during storms, are incomparably the most beautiful and varied."
~W.A. Bentley

As a small boy, Willie Bentley loved snow more than anything else in the world.  He said snow "was as beautiful as butterflies and apple blossoms".  He grew up to be one of the first known photographers of snowflakes.  His story is very interesting and inspiring.  We love reading about his great passion and perseverance in Snowflake Bentley by Jaqueline Briggs Martin.  We also love looking at his amazing snowflake photographs in his book Snowflakes in Photographs. 

We recorded some of the most beautiful snowflakes we saw from the photographs in our nature journals.  We also went outside to catch our own snowflakes.  Have you ever looked closely at a snowflake?  They really are amazingly beautiful!

"Snowflakes fall.
Flake
After flake
After flake
Each one a pattern
All its own-
No two the same-
All beautiful."

We made cut-paper snowflakes after reading Snowflakes Fall by Patricia MacLachlan.  The kids loved this classic craft.  They loved cutting and cutting.  They loved not knowing what the snowflake would look like, until it was completely unfolded.  No two were the same-all beautiful!  Amazing!

"And while the snow
is here
this brief moment,
let us take a walk
and see how beautiful
the world is"

Snow by Cynthia Rylant celebrates the beauty of snow... all kinds of snow...the soft snow, the heavy snow, the light snow, and the fat snow.  It also reminds us that snow is beautiful, but it can be brief.  That is how the snow has been for us here in Tennessee so far this winter.  Beautiful, but brief.  We all long for more snow and for the kind of snow that stays around for a while.  But until then, we are running out to greet the snow.  We are looking up into the sky and watching it gently dance through the air.  We are reaching out to catch it.  We are watching it slowly melt into our mittens.  We are walking through the snow and noticing our footprints as we go.   

After reading Snow, we made oil pastel and watercolor resist snowflakes that will help us celebrate the snow all season long!

We are celebrating the wonder and beauty of snow! 
 
 We always begin our snow celebrations with The Story of the Snow Children by Sybille von Olfers.  Then, we baked vanilla snowflake cake and sprinkled powdered sugar "snow" on top.  Let it Snow!!!