Listen to this episode of my podcast here:
I recorded this episode in January 2022. Here is the transcript:
One of my favorite activities to do in the winter is making a snowman with egg cartons.
For this activity you will need an egg carton of any size, crayons or markers, scissors, and either white paint, cotton ball, or white scrap paper (my favorite way of getting scrap paper is cutting up junk mail or old envelopes to reuse). If you are not using paint, you will need glue or tape.
For this, you will cut out sections of the egg carton ranging from 2-6 dimples or spots. I usually do 3 for a typical snowman. These spots will be the snow balls for snowman. Turn them over so the bumps are facing up. You can paint the carton white or glue paper or cotton balls on top. In my sessions, I glue cotton balls or paper onto the carton. There is way less mess in the community by doing this! We will be focusing on descriptor concepts, functions on body parts and clothing, and spatial concepts
-I prep for my sessions by cutting white paper into circles. Sometimes I also cut triangles and squares to allow my students pick what shape they want their snowmen to be. You can use this as an opportunity to practice shapes.
-We draw the parts of the face and buttons. You can make a hat or scarf with construction paper or other junk mail and glue them on. You can work on the different vocabulary (body parts and clothing) by adding these to your craft!
-If you make more than one, almost like a little snow-family, make them different sizes. Point out which ones are "tall" and "short" and talk about which ones are the same and/or different sizes. You can also work on same/different for shapes if you used different shapes.
-You can also talk about emotions by drawing different faces on the snow people.
-As your child is putting the body parts on, talk about the functions by asking them "what do we do with our eyes?" You can also change this into a why question. For example, "why do we have eyes?"
-Once your snow-people are dried, hide them! Play a hide and seek game. Once you find the location, point out if the snow person is under/behind/on top/next to different objects. These concepts can be tricky. Typically, these concepts are acquired by age 4.... it doesn't hurt to start pointing out these concepts early.
-With your snow people, you can always just play! Pretend play is an opportunity for excellent language models Use these creations with other toys like vehicles, pretend food, dolls, anything. Make up different voices and have conversations with the other toys or describe what the snow-people are doing. This exposes your child to language models.
If you need a visual for this activity, please click here:
Thank you for your time. Have a wonderful day. Take care, stay well. Have fun
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