Snow Art

A great lesson for elementary art teachers during the winter is to teach children how to make simple snow sculptures.

Enduring lesson: teach children to appreciate and manipulate new materials for the purpose of art.

Objective: teach children how to pack and roll snow for sculpting purposes and how to use accessories for embellishment.

Materials and Methods: Roll, pack, shave and cut snow, leaves, branches, shells, flowers, grass, digital camera.

Warm-up: show children a clip of an Alaskan Native Inuit creating an igloo.

Discussion: Snow is a building substance that can be packed into bricks, cut like wood, used to fill in cracks like mortar. It is sturdy enough to be used to make sculptures.

Lesson: The teacher takes the children outside and shows them how to roll snow, pack it and cut it. The teacher selects helpers to make a snowman in front of the class.

Practice: The children practice rolling, packing and cutting snow with partners. Then, they are given a randomly selected topic from which to create their own sculpture with their partner.

Reflections: The teacher takes a picture of each sculpture with the children beside it. The class discusses how their classmates used available materials along with the snow to help support or embellish the sculpture.

Vocabulary

I like the PBS children's shows that teach vocabulary. I have always felt a rich vocabulary helps make communication easier and writing more fun. Martha Speaks has a very nice introductory song that lists all the ways to say "speak." It goes: Martha speaks, she communicates, enumerates, elucidates, exaggerates, indicates and explicates, obviates and overstates. To reiterate, Martha speaks.

WordGirl has a feature at the end of the program that asks children to name their favorite word. Many of them talk about how they like the way a word sounds and what it means to them. I like the sound of convivial and the meaning of pontificate.