A Companion Guide to our Snowmen at Night Langauge Intensive Unit Study for Primary Learners to create a Family Style Unit Study for Homeschooling Families
This Snowmen at Night Writing Intensive Unit study is generally for students at third to eighth-grade levels. Feel free to mix and match with the Primary Unit Study lessons to find activities that best suit your children and their learning styles. This Snowmen at Night Companion Guide uses Living Books, along with English Language Arts, Phonemic Awareness, Science, Engineering, Technology, Art, Math, Gross Motor, Sensory, and Folktales.
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Snowmen at Night English Language Arts
Family Read Aloud Living Picture Books
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by Mark Buehner is a sweet story of a boy’s imagining when his snowman looks different the next day. He imagines that his snowman has fun at night while he is sleeping. The use of light and shadow in the illustrations really bring this book to life!
Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by Mark Buehner is a stand-alone sequel to the previous title. It explores the idea that a no-melt snowman becomes friends with a young boy and they have fun all year long. It is available on Kindle.
Snowmen at Work by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by Mark Buehner is a stand-alone sequel to the previous title. It explores the idea that snowmen have jobs like shoveling the sidewalks or drilling bits of coal for snowmen teeth. Just for laughs, the last page supposes that a snowman sits in the Oval Office!
Independent Readers and Family Read-Aloud
Use any of these choices for a family read-aloud selection. Pick another selection for independent reading based on your children’s reading abilities. Intermediate readers are generally fourth to sixth grade; secondary readers are middle and high school level.
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner is based upon an old legend. In this story, Willy tries to save the family farm after his grandfather becomes sick. Willy believes he can save the farm if he wins the National Dogsled Race. This is a pretty quick read and is available on KindleUnlimited as well as Audible and Hoopla.
This next choice will be familiar to Little House fans: The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The winter of 1880-1881 in South Dakota was brutal and the Ingalls family survived because of their ingenuity, determination, and Almonzo Wilder’s dangerous and courageous trip across the prairie to get wheat for the townfolks. Available on Hoopla and Audible.
Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge is a classic story that also makes an excellent family read-aloud. Hans tries to win enough money in a skating contest to support his family (and pay for his father’s medical treatment) after his father is injured. It has similar themes to Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner, which is a read-aloud for the Snowman at Night for Primary Learners. There are currently three versions of Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates on Amazon Prime (two live-action and one cartoon).
If your family hasn’t already read the first book in the Narnia series, the cold days of winter is a fantastic time to start. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis is an amazing allegorical tale of four siblings that discover there is a frozen world called Narnia, which is ruled by the evil White Witch. There is also a picture book version if you’d like to use this book as a family read-aloud. This book was made into a major motion picture in 2005 that is on Amazon Prime.
This week’s folktale is one of Hans Christian Anderson’s lesser-known stories, The Snowman. The snowman is only a day old, and not understanding how things work, falls in love with heating stove. Read this short story on VisitAnderson.
After reading Snowmen at Night, have your students imagine what that snowman does at night and during the daytime. Have them compare what the snowman does with what they do at night and during the day. Use the Intermediate Literary Analysis worksheets in the Free Resource Library for students who are able to write at the sentence level.
After reading the three Snowmen books, have your students imagine what other things a snowman could do. Have them write their own “Snowmen” style book. Use the Secondary Literary Analysis worksheets in the Free Resource Library for students who need encouragement to go through the writing process step by step.
Review what an adjective is (it describes nouns) with this video from Homeschool Pop. Work on adding adjectives into your student’s writing to make their writing more descriptive and interesting. Use the Intermediate Writing with Adjectives worksheets from the Free Resource Library for children writing at the sentence level.
Review what an adjective is (it describes nouns) with this classic video from SchoolHouse Rock. Work on adding adjectives into your student’s writing to make their writing more descriptive and interesting. Use the Snowmen at Night Secondary Writing with Adjectives packet from the Free Resource Library. Cut apart the adjective word list and place into a bowl or cup. Draw out 4 adjectives, which you’ll use to draw a picture and then write a sentence, with a accompanying worksheet.
Copywork and narration are a real-life way to work on grammar skills. Use the Snowmen at Night Intermediate Copywork and Narration and the Snowmen at Night Secondary Copywork and Narration pages from the Free Resource Library. After your child has written the sentence from dictation, let her see the original to check it with her work. Have her correct her work, so that she knows how it should look.
Give your child three paper plates. Have them cut one of the plates into a smaller circle. Now their paper plates look like a snowman. Have them write a story (or tell you the story while you write it out for them). Use the smaller (head) paper plate for the beginning of the story. Next, write the middle of the story on the body paper plate. Finally, end the story on the last paper plate. Decorate to look like a snowman for fun, if they want. Tape the snowman together and hang up. Encourage them to retell the story to family and friends using the snowman as a prompt to help them remember. (If you don’t have paper plates, just cut out two large circles and one small circle from paper).
Research shows that kids retain information better when they are using their bodies, so try a kinetic spelling practice this week. Have your kids write out their spelling words in a salt tray instead of on paper. You could use either regular table salt or use Epsom salt, which has larger crystals. Or, you could even use a fine powdered fake snow.
Snowmen at Night STEAM
What does fake snow have to do with disposable diapers? Find out with Professor Poliakoff in this episode of Periodic Videos.
Learn about evaporation in this easy science experiment. Use the Snowmen at Night Frosted Window Scientific Experiment worksheet in the Free Resource Library to record your hypothesis, procedure, observations, and conclusion. To create your frosted window, combine 1 cup of very warm water with 1 cup of powdered laundry detergent. Stir until most of the soap is dissolved. Sponge the liquid in a thin layer onto a window. For a control, sponge plain, very warm water onto an adjacent window. Check both windows at 10 minutes, 20 minutes and finally at 30 minutes. What happened to the plain water? What happened to the soapy water?
Weather forecasters take a lot of heat when they miss the mark forecasting winter storm systems. Back in 2015, weather forecasters predicted a blizzard would dump 3 feet of snow along the East Coast, including Washington, DC and New York City. Everything shut down in anticipation, and then it only snowed about 8 inches! Recently, NASA announced that they will be helping with snowstorm predictions. Learn more about the tools modern forecasters use to predict upcoming weather in this article from WonderHowTo.
Find out what two resources are needed to create the snow when it doesn’t naturally snow enough at ski resorts in this video from OnTheSnow. Learn more about snow-making in this article from HowStuffWorks.
Brighten up your walls with some water-resist snowflake art. This technique from KitchenTableClassroom is super easy and results in bright, beautiful paintings.
For older or more independent kids, let them try the Snowman at Night painting by StepbyStepPainting. It places a snowman in a Van Gogh inspired starry night snowscape.
Reread Snowmen at Night, and focus on what places in town the snowmen visit. Using that information, create a map of the town in the story.
Let your Secondary students calculate how much it would cost to put down 18 inches of snow over Vail Ski Resort (5289 acres). Use this video about the business of snowmaking from OnTheSnow to learn how much it costs per acre per 12 inches.
Snowmen at Night Sensory and Motor Skills
Build a snowman, toilet paper style. Let your kids roll each other up in a roll of toilet paper, adding construction paper buttons, a scarf, and sticks for arms. Extra points for creativity! (My homeschool co-op’s Teen [Student] Council loves this activity!)
Sensory and Body Awareness
Making this play-dough is a fabulous way for older siblings to work on their practical arts skills while they are doing something helpful! Plus, this time of year when it’s usually too cold to go outside, it can be important to find other ways to help your kids burn energy through “heavy work” activities. Play-dough is a fantastic way to get in some heavy work, and it also a fine motor activity. Win-win! Use my recipe to make Easy, No-Melt Snow Dough playdough, either regular or gluten-free.
Be sure to follow my Pinterest board North Pole South Pole for more great hands-on activities and ideas for your Snowmen at Night unit study!
And most importantly, pin this post so you can refer back to it during your Snowman at Night unit study.