Let it snow part 3

I think I've finally finished the snow unit with Iona, as the past 2 days' rain has washed the last snow away. On Thursday I made the most of it before the cold ended and the rain began, and took Iona out to play in the snow.

We went into the front garden first, where it was still pristine, and I showed her how when we walked in the snow it left footprints. I photographed mine, Daddy's and hers, and showed her a nice trail of cat footprints.

I also let Lori out into the garden and tried to photograph her prints but she ran around like a mad thing and so didn't leave any good enough ones! Unfortunately, Iona most wanted to go for a walk down the road, preferably in the middle of the road, and preferably on her own, so it all ended it tears when this wasn't allowed!

Next I took her into the back garden (from where she wouldn't be tempted to escape!), so she could play a bit more. Once she'd got hold of Lori's frameball she was happy to run around there, chasing after Lori, but she didn't seem very interested in my attempts to make a snowman. I showed her how to make a snowball, though. After we'd done playing outside we went back in, where Iona found that there was still a piece of snow stuck to her mitten. I rescued it from her and kept showing it to her as it got smaller, explaining that the snow was melting and turning back to water.

I explained more to Iona about snow melting yesterday, when we walked to the car to go to the Children's Centre. It was fairly slushy by then, and she very much enjoyed splashing in the resulting puddles.

Then, today, as I said, I finished making Iona's lapbook on snow. I printed out the photos of the footprints, and made a flip book of them. In addition, I found a website from which I could print out a world map (http://www.mapsofworld.com/) and printed out an outline map of the world. I coloured in blue (and Iona helped) the "areas where there is a lot of snow", and marked on it the names of the people who lived in the American and European Arctics (I had read to Iona during the week from a book about Arctic peoples), as well as a pointer showing where we lived. During the evenings this week I have also read "The Snow Queen" to her.

Overall, this has been my most successful unit study, possibly because I had a deadline of trying to get it finished before the snow went. I've tried to do a bit of work on it every day with her, and feel that it's really focussed my mind and given me ideas to cover things (such as forgiveness) that I probably wouldn't have tried yet. It's also the first lapbook that I've finished making.