Snowflakes explained with fun kids activities! Whether you’re looking for snowflake lesson plans for elementary, snow day lesson plans middle school, want snow science lesson plans for preschool, or need snowflake craft ideas, you’ll have fun with these snowflakes teaching resources, classroom activities, and ice and snow lesson plans preschool and up!
Snowflakes Explained for Kids and Fun Snowflake Learning Ideas
Learning about snowflakes or snow? Add these snow lesson plans snow lesson plans for kindergarten / preschool and fun STEM lessons for older kids to your winter learning, snow life cycle learning, December activity calendar, January lesson plan, or February lesson ideas!
Teaching About Snowflakes:
- Discuss are snowflakes living?
- Do a snowflake shapes activity
- Grow a snow flake for a snow science activity
- Look at a snowflake under microscope
- Incorporate a snowflake math activity middle school and high school
- Learn about the life cycle of a snowflake
- Do a snowflake geometry project based on the shapes of snowflakes
- Create with a snowflake writing activity (snowflake poems, snowflake stories, or use a creative snowflake writing prompt, etc.)
- Learn about Snowflake Bentley and create your own snowflakes tutorial
- Discuss the difference between a snow flake and a snow crystal
- Make online snowflakes
- Complete a life cycle of a snowflake worksheet
- Draw a snowflake for a snowflake art lesson
- Cut a snowflake out of paper
- Do a snowflake symmetry worksheet drawing (fun math and art snowflakes activity!)
- Make snowflake crafts
- Learn about the characteristics of snowflakes and different shapes of snowflakes (dendrites, columns, plates, needles, etc.) – great for snowflake activities for elementary students, middle school, and high school!
- Tie in the differences between snowflakes and the differences between people for a diversity lesson
- Create a unique like a snowflake list of yourself! (What makes me different than others?)
More ideas for snow and ice lesson plans for preschool and up below! KEEP SCROLLING!
The snowflake lifecycle is great for how is snow made lesson!
Here’s how a snowflake forms…
What is the life cycle of a snowflake?
- Drops of dust float in a cloud.
- Water vapor freezes around that piece of dust and creates a seed crystal.
- The seed crystal moves around within the cloud. If there’s enough water in the cloud, the water will attach to the seed crystal.
- Eventually the seed crystal forms six sides to form a hexagon snow crystal (aka: snowflake), the most basic shape.
- If there’s more water around the snow crystal, there will be “arms” that form out from the basic snowflake shape. (What people think of as the traditional snowflake shape is called a dendrite. Colder temperatures often result in dendrite shapes.)
- As a snowflake falls from the cloud, the shape keeps changing based on the conditions in air. (Temperature, wind, and water in the air all affect the shape of the snowflake.) That’s why no two snowflakes are alike!
Add these steps for life cycle of a snowflake preschool learning and lessons for older kids, too!
DID YOU KNOW? All snowflakes have six sides!
What are the 7 types of snowflakes?
- Plates
- Stellar crystals
- Columns
- Needles
- Dendrites
- Capped columns
- Irregular forms
Study the snowflake types for a STEM winter snowflake plan / snowflake activity for elementary and up!
MORE SNOW ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN
Snow Day Survival Basket Ideas
Snowflake Bentley Lesson Plans
If you don’t know about Snowflake Bentley, you definitely need to add it to your snowflake explained lessons!
Great for snowflake lesson kindergarten and up and research on snowflakes / learning about the anatomy of a snowflake.
No matter the age of the student, start with this snowflake story!
Snowflake Bentley Activities:
- Read Snowflake Bentley and learn about Wilson Bentley and his work with snowflakes
- Get a free snowflake shape lessons plan and printable activity sheets to use with the Snowflake Bentley book
- Watch The Snowflake Man (a short film about Snowflake Bentley)
- Review Snowflakes in Photographs, Bentley’s photographs of snowflakes, learn about science snowflake patterns, and then create your own Bentley snowflake (draw, tissue paper snowflakes, etc.)
- Watch a video with Snowflake Bentley’s snowflake photos (real snowflakes magnified!) and document the different character snowflake patterns for science snowflakes projects
- Prepare a snowflake slide and look at it under the microscope (learn how here), see a real life snowflake up close, then document and describe snowflake for a STEM activity
- Watch This Place in History: Snowflake Bentley
- Follow along with a Snowflake Bentley video read aloud
(Let us know if you have fun lesson plans for Snowflake Bentley and we’ll add them to the list!)
Snow Lesson Plan for Pre K and Kindergarten
These are great activities and snowflake lesson plans preschool and snowflake activities for kindergarten!
Kindergarten and Preschool Snowflake Activities Ideas:
- Cut out shapes and let kids form snowflakes with them
- Make snowflakes from paper
- Go on a snowy day scavenger hunt and ask kids to describe snowflakes using all the senses
- Watch What is a snowflake for preschoolers?
- Download a free What Makes It Snow? lesson plan
- Do a scratch a snowflake craft
- Use snowflake stencils like this to color snowflakes
- Do a snowflake science preschool project with this instant snow
- Play the snowflake catch game
- Make a pet snowman
Snow Lesson Plans Toddlers Ideas
Snow lesson plans for toddlers:
- Make a snowflake sensory bin or snowflake sensory jar
- Play with a cold snow table
- Read: No Two Alike (snowflake board book)
- Read: Nature Stories: Little Snowflake (boardbook)
- Play with snowflake felts
- Make thumbprint snowflakes
- Have fun with snowflake stampers
- Blow some winter day snowflake bubbles
- Create a snowflakes Montessori learning center
Let’s get to the snow and ice lessons!
Learning About Snowflakes: Lessons, Worksheets, and Kids Activities
Pick and choose from any of the following snow activities and printable lesson plans to create a fun snowflake lesson plan, winter activities, and ways to teach snowflake activities for snowflake classes!
Ideas for lesson on snowflakes:
- Watch where do snowflakes come from YouTube video
- Draw the different types of snowflakes
- Study the snowflake life cycle
- Grow a snowflake (great for STEM snowflake lesson plans 1st grade and up – even high school snowflake lessons!) and talk about snow crystals
- Get a free printable snowflake formation lesson plan (grades 4-6)
- Cut a snowflake out of paper (LEARN HOW TO CUT A SNOWFLAKE HERE to go with a paper snowflake lesson plan)
- Use the word SNOWFLAKE as create a word with each letter snowflake writing prompts
- Get a snowflake science activity book
- Use a snowflake generator like this to make snowflakes online
- Do a snowflake symmetry activity (learn how here)
- Use molecule models to make a 6-sided snowflake (one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms) for snowflake STEM activities
- Make snow ice cream!
- Read: The Secret Life of a Snowflake: An Up-Close Look at the Art and Science of Snowflakes and learn about the characteristics of a snowflake
- Play the Snowman Paper Plate Game
- Make a Homemade Chocolate Frosty With Snow
- Create an interlocking snowflake
- Decorate a snowflake
- Make a snowflake bookmark
- Create a snowflake sun catcher
- Make a bead snowflake craft
- Make a snowflake tree
Books About Snowflakes for Kids
Add these children’s books to learn more about the story of the snowflake.
Great snowflake books for kindergarten, preschool, and up:
- The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder
- Curious About Snow
- The Snowflake
- Ten Sparkly Snowflakes
- Snow
- Tracks In The Snow
- Ten Ways To Hear The Snow
Let us know your favorite stories about snowflakes and we’ll add them to our book list!
Enjoy these life cycle of snowflake, snowflake science unit ideas, and fun snowflake activity ideas!
We hope you have fun with these snowflakes explained activities for kids!
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