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Carmie
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MaryM, I want to do a snowflake unit in December with Luke. I know you have tons of ideas! So far, I have plans for us to cut out our own snowflakes and I've got 2 books: The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht (this one has exquisite photography) and the other is a picture book, Snowflake Bentley. Has anyone done this already? Any ideas? I haven't exhausted everything at my library yet. I'm just getting started. Thanks, Carmen
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Theresa
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We got a snow lapbook from Homeschool estore last year but I couldn't find it when I needed it and so it is in our January folder for this year. There are some other neat things there that you may be interested in.
Homeschool e-store
Just do a search on the left side of the page for snow.
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ShawnaB
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Carmie, last year we also studied snow, and I found the most wonderful resource for a unit study on THIS forum! Here's the link: Snowflake Bentley
Also, Hands of a Child has a lovely lapbook about snow, as well as a Katy and the Big Snow lapbook. Also, I recommend checking your library for W.A. Bentley's photography books. We checked out one last year, and wow, those images are just incredible.
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MaryM
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Carmen - the old thread Shawna just linked was the one I was going to mention. That's where a lot of my snowflake study ideas are mentioned. I thought I had science and weather ones there, too. I'll have to look and see if I still have those printed someplace already.
Michaela did a fabulous snow crystal study a couple years back - but I'm not finding it here. I think it was on CCM or Rabbit Trails. Do you still have it to post here, Michaela?
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MaryM
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Here are a few sites to get started on the topic. This first one at Cal Tech has gorgeous photographs, explanations of the physics behind snow crystal formation, maps of where to find the best crystals based on snow fall, Field Guide to snowflake forms including classification charts. There are also tips for catching snow crystals for viewing. It has some experiments that you can try including how to build an apparatus to grow your own snow crystals (for those not living in snowy climates!) and making "snow flake fossils" which you have more time to look at because they don't melt.
This second site is about Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley.
Snow Science page – it has some of the same things as the kid's section of the Cal Tech page but I think the presentation/explanation is a bit easy to follow.
In addition to the fantastic books of photographs by Bentley and Kenneth Libbrecht that you are using already or have been mentioned, we used this one.
The snowflake : a water cycle story by Neil Waldman is a children's book about the water cycle and snow formation.
Dover has several beautiful stained glass coloring books of snowflakes.
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Mary M. in Denver
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Carmie
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Thank you everybody for your input. It look like Snowflake Bentley is where to start. We already have a Dover Snowflake coloring book. I'm not sure how in-depth I want to get, but I'm fascinated by snowflakes and I thought this would be a good thing to study as it gets colder and even today since it just started snowing!!! Thanks for the help! -Carmen
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chicken lady
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I think Cay put one together about 3 or so years ago over on Lit ALive list. Is this right Cay, or am I imagining it 
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CathinCoffeland
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AWWW...I want the SNOW to do a snowflake unit!
We rarely get it maybe a day or two in Jan. Bulbs are up by february.
I like the idea though...maybe Ill check out the book at the library in January just in case!
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Carmie
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I just noticed Snow book suggestions in the Christmas Mosaic supplement! Yay!
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Willa
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The homeschool e-store which Theresa mentioned has a free What is Snow? lapbook right now.
What is Snow?
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MaryM
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A few weeks back I requested a new book that was on order at our library. Well ironically it arrived on my hold shelf today - the same day we are in the midst of a pretty heavy autumn snow storm. I think we have about 10 inches so far.
Anyway, the book is The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter's Wonder. It a lovely science picture book. Explains how snow crystals form from tiny particles with all kinds of interesting facts about them. Illustrated with a combination of line drawings and snow crystal photographs like those seen in the above mentioned Libbrecht and Bentley books.
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JodieLyn
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This
Make snowflakes online
Might be fun to go along with this. 
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MaryM
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I love virtual snowflake sites - no little pieces of paper all over the place.  Here is another virtual snowflake making site I've recommended in the past.
Some of you who aren't experiencing winter weather yet, may think I'm jumping the gun here with all this snowflake talk.
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Mary M. in Denver
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organiclilac
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I like Macbeth's winter page - I really want to do the space dust experiment!
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allegiance_mom
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Here is my blog post on our snow unit. We are fortunate that our local science museum owns the entire Bentley photography collection, and had them on display that year, so we were able to include a field trip to see the actual slides as a bonus!
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MB in MD
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In the middle of a fun snow/winter unit for my 7-year-old son during a particularly cold and snowy winter (it seems) and wanted to thank you all for the great leads and ideas I've been reading about.......... and toss in one of my own that I didn't see anyone else mention: Besides "Snowflake Bentley" there is another nice picture book on Bentley that my library has: "My Brother Loved Snowflakes" by Mary Bahr. It is an imaginative reminiscence by W. Bentley's brother, lovely illustrations and a bit more emphasis on the fact that they were homeschooled by their mom!
I also tried an art project I found where you basically "paint" salt-solution snowflakes onto dark cardstock. I boiled the water, poured it into a mug, stirred in the salt, and we painted....but it was a disappointment in that the salt crystals were not visible when the paper dried. BUT -- under the category of How Homeschooling Improves My Life -- I made the serendipitous discovery that salt solution completely cleans off those brown stains in my mugs ! 
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MaryM
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MB - I liked the My Brother Loved Snowflakes book, too. Thanks for mentioning it in the thread.
I've had problems in the past with some salt solution crafts, too. It often helps to use a courser grind of salt or even Epsom salt or rock salt. And make sure the solution is over saturated so there are crystals to pick up that aren't dissolved in the water.
Hey, I found this interesting variation:epsom salt & beer snowflakes
I also want to try some of these borax snowflakes this year (or the sugar crystal ones described there, too).
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Chris V
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MaryM wrote:
Anyway, the book is The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter's Wonder. It a lovely science picture book. Explains how snow crystals form from tiny particles with all kinds of interesting facts about them. Illustrated with a combination of line drawings and snow crystal photographs like those seen in the above mentioned Libbrecht and Bentley books. |
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My parents gifted this book to my children this year for Christmas! I haven't even looked through it yet, but it's nice to see a reference here! That makes me more excited to read it with my kiddos!
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stellamaris
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Quote:
I also want to try some of these borax snowflakes this year (or the sugar crystal ones described there, too).
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Mary, we did these last year. They turned out great! They did take longer than the instructions said, we left them in the solution about 5 or 6 days, if I remember correctly. Also, you can color the solution, but if you want the color to be visible on the final snowflake, you will need to make the solution pretty dark. We hung them in our kitchen window and they were lovely!
Another great "snow" book, which I know everyone is probably familiar with but I'm going to list here anyway! is The Big Snow, a beautiful Caldecott winner that relates how the forest animals survive winter.
We are doing a "snow and ice" unit right now, and we are including these topics: the formation of snow, snow crystals, ice skating, Winter Olympics, Tchaikovsky (sounds sort of unrelated, but he was from a cold and snowy country!), Bruegel's painting of The Hunters in the Snow (Winter), memorizing and copywork from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Our read aloud is Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates. One boy is also reading The Hockey Mystery (Boxcar Children), not great literature, but he's just starting with chapter books and he got excited about that one. We watched the movie "Miracle" about the 1980 defeat of the USSR hockey by the Americans. Be forewarned there is some language in that movie, but the game sequences are exciting and the work the team did to win is inspiring. For art, we are being inspired by Bentley's pictures in Snow Crystals.
We, fortunately for all you ladies, I'm out of time to post !
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JennGM
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I came across a book recommendation on another list and thought I'd throw in a few recommendations for snowflake art.
First, there is
Designs for Coloring: Snowflakes by Ruth Heller.
and Stained Glass Designs for Coloring: Snowflakes
Not only are these to color, but these could be used as inspiration elsewhere, like creating snowflake pysanky.
And nothing is prettier to me than white thread crochet and making crocheted snowflaks. They are so beautiful on the Christmas tree.
I had seen this post of the Borax activity and it really got me excited.
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Snowflakes
