Magic Snowmen

Unlike some other areas of the country, we have gotten nearly NO snow this year.  Or last year.  The year before, we got lots.  All this no snow puts quite a damper on our snowman painting.  Thank goodness for this book: Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner.

I read this book to kindergarten one class period, and had them draw their snowman large on their paper.  The premise of the book is What if it were magic snow and the snowman could stay with you all year?  You could play in the yard with him! You could teach him to swim! You could go trick-or-treating together! You might know the author for one of her other books, Snowmen At Night.  

The first day, I have them draw JUST the three circles (like they've built the snowman but haven't added all the "extras" yet).  Then they trace it with glue:

Sorry for how hard it is to see--it's hard to photograph
white glue on white paper!

The next time they came to art they drew with pencil all the details of their snowman, as well as themselves and the background (I wanted them to be creative with where they were with their snowmen and what they were doing):

The final day or two was spent painting (with tempera blocks) all the beautiful colors on their papers.  I had to remind them over and over that snow is WHITE, so that part should be left unpainted.  Here are some of my favorites:

This snowman is in the water on a warm summer day.
The student is on the floaty on the right.

Snowman in the yard with the child on
a nice warm day.

This one might be at school with the student?  Sometimes
it's hard to tell, but that doesn't make it any less adorable.

Another outside-on-a-warm-summer-day one.

There were many more cute ones, but so often they decided to paint their snowmen green or red and then they got "lost" in the painting.  One of my favorites was a snowman at the movies with the child!