Learning Opportunity 1

Snowman experiment – Fake snow
Resources needed:
• Baking soda
• White hair conditioner
• Some accessories such as twigs, googly eyes, stick for carrot nose, ribbon

Method:
• Pour 3 cups of baking soda into a bowl
• Pour half a cup of white hair conditioner and mix together
• The texture should be light and fluffy. If it is sticky, add more baking soda and keep mixing
• When the mixture is ready, spread it out over the tray and your child can enjoy playing and pretending that it is real snow
• Enjoy making your own snowman while decorating it with eyes, nose, arms and ribbon as scarf. You can add some small toys such as reindeer, Christmas trees and Father Christmas or anything that is related to Christmas and snow.

Learning Opportunity 2:

Cooking activity- Snowman biscuits

Things needed:
• 75g butter or margarine,
• 75g caster sugar,
• 1 egg,
• 1 tbsp whole milk,
• 225g plain flour,
• 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence,
• A packet of white marshmallows,
• Black writing icing decorative pen,
• Orange icing,
• 200g icing sugar,
• Some water.
• A rolling pin,
• A sieve,
• A round cutter.

Method:

1. Mix the butter and sugar together until smooth, then add the milk, vanilla essence and egg and mix again.
2. Finally add the flour and beat until you have a smooth dough.
3. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for one hour.
4. Roll out the dough on some flour with a rolling pin. Cut out the biscuits in circles and put in the oven for around 12 minutes.
5. In the meantime start decorating the marshmallows with an edible ink decoration pen to draw the eyes and mouth. Use orange icing for the noses.
6. Sieve some icing sugar and add some water slowly creating white icing.
7. Put out the ready-made biscuits from the oven and let them cool.
8. When biscuits are cool, drop a teaspoon of icing onto the centre of each biscuit and use the back of the spoon to spread it out
9. Place a marshmallow onto the wet icing, and leave to set for about an hour. You can decorate using the decorative pen, and draw some buttons or scarves on the white icing.
A tasty beautiful snowman is ready to eat. 🙂

Learning Opportunity 3

Numeracy activity: Counting the snowman’s buttons.

Resources needed:
• Some coloured buttons,
• A snowman template cut out from white cardboard,
• 10 snowman hats cut out in different coloured cardboard numbered from 1 to 10.
• A plastic tray and a small plastic bowl.
• A black and orange pen.

Method:
1. Cut out a simple template of a snowman from white cardboard as in picture.
2. Draw eyes and mouth using a black pen, and the nose using an orange one.
3. Cut out 10 hats for the snowman in different colours. You can use coloured paper or cardboard, whatever you have at home. Number them from 1 to 10 using the black pen.
4. Put the buttons in the bowl, and place the snowman and hats in the tray.
5. Choose a numbered hat and put it on the snowman’s head.
6. Make your child count the buttons on the snowman according to the number on the hat. Make sure to mix the numbered hat templates and don’t put them in sequence.
7. This activity will help your child in number recognition and value.