Mrs. Weber's First Grade Class

Mrs. Weber's First Grade Class
Greentown Elementary School
North Canton, Ohio
Snow Riders

On a cold, frosty Ohio afternoon we cuddled up and read Snow Riders by Constance W. McGeorge. In this lovely story a brother and sister spend the day making huge snow horses "with eyes and ears and flowing manes and tails." Later that night, they sneak out and mount the horses, and to their astonishment, the glistening snow beasts spring to life. Mary Whyte's beautiful illustrations filled our eyes and fueled our imaginations. Miles away, in Port Jefferson Station, New York, Mrs. Reese's Second Grade Class at Boyle Road Elementary School was also enjoying this wonderful winter tale. Come see the wonderful collaborative unit both schools participated in based upon our reading of Snow Riders!

	After we finished reading the book, Mrs. Weber talked to the class about what good imaginations the children in the story had to think of making snow horses instead of snow men. We talked about what WE would make out of snow if we were the boy and girl in the story. Then Mrs. Weber told us that we would get a chance to make our imaginary creatures out of snow dough! Mrs. Knox told us that the boys and girls at Boyle Road Elementary were also going to make creatures from snow dough. Mrs. Knox and her friend, Mrs. Silverman, decided that it would be really cool if we could show each other our snow creatures...and talk about them together...and that's how our adventure began!
First we made "snow dough" following a recipe that our friends at Boyle Road Elementary School sent to us. It was fun to learn about measurements as we mixed together the dough. We really liked the way the glitter looked when it was mixed into the dough...just like real snow! Then Mrs. Weber gave us each a ball of dough to mold our snow creatures from. We had some trouble with our creatures...the dough wasn't staying together very well and we couldn't seem to make the creatures we had imagined no matter how hard we tried! Oh my...what a pickle! Mrs. Weber and Mrs. Knox told us that we would have to become problem solvers...
	We thought and thought and came up with some solutions to our problem. The first thing we decided was that even though our snow dough was pretty and fun to make, we would use something different this time. We decided to use white Model Magic. We also talked about how people use things like sticks, hats, carrots, and scarves when they build snowmen...so we decided we would use some "props" when we built our creatures. Then we came up with the idea of having our Fourth Grade "Book Buddies" help us with our project. Their teacher, Mr. McCallister thought it was a great idea!
The next time our Book Buddies came to our classroom Mrs. Weber read Snow Riders to us again and the Fourth Graders listened to the story too. They really liked it! Then we paired up and started working on our snow creatures together. When we were finished we each wrote a story about our snow creature. Mrs. Knox came to our room and took pictures of our creatures with her digital camera. Then she zipped them off to Mrs. Silverman at Boyle Road Elementary School in Port Jefferson. Mrs. Silverman printed out our pictures for Mrs. Reese's Second Grade to see. Each one of them will write a story about one of our snow creatures and mail it back to us. We are really excited to see what they imagine when they look at our creatures. They are also going to give our creatures names!
	The students at Boyle Road Elementary are making snow creatures too! Mrs. Silverman will send us pictures of THEIR snow creatures and we will name them and write stories about them. We can't wait to see what they look like! It's really been fun for all of us to make new friends in a far away place using a beautiful book as our connection.

"Snowperson Glyph" was a frosty activity that all of the Greentown School First Grade classrooms enjoyed. Visitors to our First Grade Hall can "read" about each student by viewing his or her snowperson on the bulletin board! Our teachers projected the legend for building the snowpersons on the overhead projector and we followed along.The picture on the left shows the legend we used. The picture below is of some of our finished snowpersons.

Click here to download a .pdf version of our Snowperson Glyph legend for use in your own classroom! (You will need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer...if not, you may download the free Reader here.)