Snow School

Melting Snow

Earlier this year I printed and filed a free Preschool Science Printable Pack from Living and Learning at Home and pull them out as opportunity arises. I didn't think we'd get to use the Melting Snow activity, but who knew the first week of March would bring such a fun surprise!

Super simple and very interesting experiment. The boys were all surprised at the outcome!

First, we filled a measuring cup with snow and recorded around 2 cups. Then each boy made a hypothesis (educated guess) on how much water was in the snow. We waited for the snow to melt.

Those two cups of snow melted down to about 1/4 cup of water!! No one had guessed less than one cup. 

Explaination from Home Training Tools

Snow is made when water freezes in the form of ice crystals that we call snowflakes. The pointed star-like shape of a snowflake causes its points to stick out far from its body, allowing the snowflake to take up a lot of room. (If you stick your arms straight out from your body, something similar would happen with you! Your arms cause your body to take up more space and you may find yourself bumping into walls or having a hard time making your way down a hallway with your arms sticking straight out.) When lots of snowflakes pile up, their points keep them from getting very close together, creating empty space in between the snowflakes. When the snow melts into water, the snowflakes no longer have their points, and the space between them disappears. (If you put your arms down next to your body, you are no longer taking up so much space and can get much closer to other people and things.) So the melted snow takes up less space as water than it did as snowflakes.

With our arms straight out, similar to a pointed star-like snowflake, we can only get so close leaving more space between each other. 

As we "melt" and arms come down we get closer taking up less space.

More Snow Day Fun

This is as far as my littlest guy wanted to get to the snow. Not a fan yet.

So with dad out of town and brothers itching to find some kind of a hill for sledding, I plowed the jogging stroller down the street with D-man safe and cozy inside. 

We didn't have to go too far and were thankful the neighbors let us use their hill.

Dad's flight got him home in time for dinner and then a little night sledding. He is a master at extreme memory making and of course, found a MUCH bigger hill evidenced by a bloody high speed wound. They said it was one of the greatest nights "ever!"

We ended our day with the simplest recipe for snow ice cream that I could find:

8 cups of snow

1 can of condensed milk

1 tsp of vanilla

Mix together.

Fireside snow ice cream after a full and fun day!