Welcome to my first post
on Rainbows2Snowflakes. While I definitely know what direction I intend to take
with this blog, I will more than likely modify the paths I travel to reach the
final destination.
Rainbows2Snowflakes is
intended to be a friendly and informative online space to distribute and share
ideas for activities, projects, and children’s literature. As we are all
forever learners, many of the activities will appeal to a wide audience and age
range. However, for the duration of this summer, the posts and ideas will be
geared towards children ages four through eight.
Since summer has
unofficially begun and the pools are now open, I thought I’d join in with the
summer fun and jump right into the deep end of the blog pool with my first
activity from The Sizzling Summer Snow
Day thematic unit. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will post different
ideas and activities from this summer unit. Some of them are easy to do with
few materials required and some of the activities are more elaborate and
require careful planning. When all activities have been added, I will add a
link to the entire unit, just in time for the super sizzling days of July and
August.
Activity 1—Sticky
Snowman Snowball Sort—Twice the Fun
Marshmallows
are such entertaining treats. They squish. They roll. They stick to just about
anything. This marshmallow-themed activity will provide both a fun afternoon of
learning and play as well as an educational boost for the little ones in your
life.
Ages: 3-8
Time to complete: Part 1—15-20 minutes; Part 2—45-60
minutes
Hint: To make sure your children have super clean hands for
this activity, instead of singing the usual Happy
Birthday song while they was their hands, sing Jingle Bells while they splash in the soap and water. The kids will
love singing the Christmas song in the summer and they will have squeaky clean
hands when they are ready to dive into the bowl of mixed-up marshmallows.
Materials:
4 nesting bowls
3 small bowls, 1 cup sized
3 bags of marshmallows in 3
sizes (available in big box stores)
Rice Treat ingredients—1 10 oz.
bag marshmallows, 3 TBSP butter, 1 tsp vanilla, 6 cups rice cereal
Embellishments: Mini M &
Ms, fruit rolls, pretzels, powdered sugar (optional)
Cookie sheet coated with non-stick spray
How big is your
marshmallow—Part One
Instructions:
1. Prior to the activity, place
the marshmallows in the largest bowl, making sure they are mixed, as shown.
2. Arrange the remaining bowls
by size from smallest to largest in front of the large bowl.
3. Discuss the sizes of the
three types of marshmallows.
4. Sort the marshmallows by size into the corresponding bowl.
Make the fun count
by counting your snowballs
Use three 1 cup sized bowls and
have the children predict how many marshmallows of each size it would take to
fill that bowl. Fill the bowls, one at a time, with each size marshmallow.
Count the total number of marshmallows it takes to fill the bowl.
Ask: Why did it take more of the small marshmallows to fill the bowl than
the other two sizes?
Create a Crispy
Summer Snowman—Part Two
A fun follow-up activity to the marshmallow sort, this activity uses
the marshmallows from Part One and continues to reinforce the concepts of
comparing items by size as well as counting skills.
Instructions:
Hint: Step 1
should be completed by an adult.
1. Create the marshmallow
treats.
a. Melt the butter over low heat.
b. Melt the marshmallows by stirring them in the melted
butter over low heat.
c. Remove the melted mixture from the heat and stir in
the vanilla.
d. Stir in the rice cereal until coated with the melted
marshmallow mixture.
2. To prevent the mixture from
sticking to your hands, apply a coating of butter to the palms of your hands.
3. Grab three clumps of the
mixture and place them on a cookie sheet coated with non-stick spray, making
sure there are three different-sized clumps.
4. Roll the clumps into firm
ball shapes and allow to stiffen slightly before proceeding to Step 5.
5. (Optional) Roll each of the
balls in a layer of powered sugar, leaving a quarter-sized area that is not
coated. The uncoated area will be used to help the balls stick together to form
the snowman.
6. Assemble the snowman by
placing the balls from largest to smallest, pressing them together to stick.
7. Decorate the snowman with
the candy, fruit roll, and pretzels.
Have fun with this activity!
