Snow-where to Go?

 Here are some at home ideas to keep you and your family edu-tained.

1) Play in the snow, obviously! Try to catch snow on your tongue, try to catch it on a metal spoon and look at it before it melts. If we get enough fresh snow, try snow cream. If you have a kitchen scale you can measure your ounces of snow to get the right ratio to condensed milk. 

What about a snow map? You can use old markers and spray bottles to make different colors and design a map of your neighborhood, or a topographic map of our state with different colors showing different heights. Food coloring and water in an eye dropper or straw can transform your snow and stay eco-friendly.

Packing snow? There's nothing better than fort building... but if you can't build a huge fort could you build a mouse castle? A doll store? A dog-sized skate park?

2) On each grade level website there are games and videos we have enjoyed in class. Play 10 NitroType games if you are in grades 2-8 or try https://monkeytype.com/ if you don't like the racing! Use 2 hands, But don't spend forever on screens... 

3) Snow days invite us to slow down. Accept a slow down challenge, who can make a ball move the slowest from one place in your house to another? A ping pong ball and a set of stairs is ideal, can you slow the ball down while it is still in motion? Do you need to make the track steeper or more gentle and shallow? How can friction help you?

A fun marble run variation involves a lot of painters tape, a wall and toilet paper tubes or other paperboard (cereal boxes, etc). This was a very popular activity for most grades!

4) Go one step further and make a bigger mess-- Rube Goldberg contraptions are always a hit! Check out some examples, and then see what treasures are in your recycling bin!

5) Hot Chocolate Science? https://www.stem-spark.com/activities/hot-chocolate-physics 

6) Check out this awesome website for a wide variety of ideas: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities . For less mess and more fun for a variety of ages I'd recommend the catapults, paper planes and flipbooks.

7) Celebrate the snow day with stop motion. Make a video of you celebrating in the snow using the free app, Stop Motion Studio. 

Or get out some clay, paper and those trusty boxes from the recycling and make your own stop motion video. Cooking video? Animate a video game? Animal charades using your siblings? 

8) Build the best indoor reading fort and take a picture to share. Nothing better than being cozy with a great book. Get the book titles in the pictures so we can all get some great book recommendations!

Share and check out what others are doing at home during our snow days! 

Add your ERA family friendly photos and videos here!