Transferring Snowballs Tray Activity

I saw a similar activity on this post by Tot Play and I wanted to set up a similar activity of my own. I’ve seen similar ideas on other blogs too, but I first saw it on Tot Play so that’s the post I’m referencing.

I decided to set it up as a tray activity. I put the tongs and shovel at the top, the snowman tin on the left and on the right; I arranged the three bowls from largest at the top to smallest on the bottom. I took a course on tray activities once and it said to set up the tray as you would when you are reading. What they mean is have the very first thing the child will pick up at the top and then have the rest of the activity move from left to right as they work their way from top to bottom. They explained it better than I can, but I hope that makes sense. Since this was the largest tray I had and it still wasn’t big enough, I set it up as close as I could to that format. The snowman tin was a little too big for the tray, but I thought it was cute for the theme.

This is a great activity for fine motor skills. I started with the snowman tin closed.



Next the tin was opened and there were the assortment of snowballs. I used cotton balls, pompoms, marshmallows, beads and paper balls. The three bowls were supposed to correspond to the size of the snowball. The cotton and paper balls were for the large bowl, the marshmallows and medium sized pompoms were for the medium bowl and the beads and tiny pompoms were for the small measuring cup. The kids might decide though that some of the pompoms would work better in the larger bowl and that’s okay. They might also decide to sort them in a different way and do what makes sense to them. I included the tongs and shovel in case one or the other would be too challenging for some reason or just so they can have a choice of which object to use.





Finally, some extensions of this activity would be to make patterns with the snowballs. How many different patterns can you make? They can be sorted in a line from largest to smallest or smallest to largest. Each type of snowball can be counted and sorted. How many beads, cotton balls etc? For children who are a little bit older, you can use the snowballs to work on simple addition or subtraction problems. They can also transfer the snowballs back and forth between the bowls or pour a full bowl of snowballs into an empty bowl. How many snowballs does it take to fill up the large bowl? How many snowballs does it take to fill up the small measuring cup? How many more snowballs do you have to use to fill up the bowl if they are smaller? What other objects around the house can we use for snowballs? If you have snow outside, you can spend some time outside making different sized snowballs and doing some sorting, patterning and counting and making different sized snowmen or snow structures. Either way, playing with snow and snowballs is always fun!

Hot Coco Craft

For this hot coco craft you will need:

1 Styrofoam or paper cup,
1 Brown paper lunch bag,
Coco powder or hot chocolate packet,
Cotton balls,
Glue
And scissors.

I started off with a plain white Styrofoam cup. Then I cut up pieces of the paper bag and glued a small piece into the bottom of the cup.


Next, I took larger strips of the paper bag and glued it around the inside of the cup so that all the white was covered.


I thought painting with a coco powder and water mix was a good idea, but all it did was make everything wet and the glue wasn’t sticking.


Luckily, I didn’t do this for very long and was still able to do the next part of the project. I decided to just spread some glue around the inside of the cup on the sides and the bottom. Then I sprinkled some coco powder in the cup and swirled it around. It made the cup smell like chocolate and made it look more realistic.

The coco powder and water painting might work well for scented water colors. I only used maybe half a t-spoon of coco powder and mixed it in a small bowl of water. I might have used half a cup.



Finally, I added some cotton balls as marshmallows by gluing them to the bottom and edge of the cup. I only put one on the bottom and two on the top, but would’ve put more if I had a larger cup. You could also use real marshmallows as well.





This came out pretty well and only took about fifteen minutes including the time it took to gather the materials. I’ve seen a few different hot chocolate activities on the blogs lately, but wanted to do my own version of one. Plus I wanted to try a hot chocolate craft with the kids and after trying this myself, I think it would work well. I’ve learned after one planning disaster that it always is better to test the activity yourself first especially if it’s an arts and crafts activity.

Exploring Ice Sensory Tub

First, I filled the ice cube tray with water and put in random small objects so they would freeze in the ice cubes. I used a piece of a straw, round bead, sparkly heart, a penny, dice, round stones, a button, a shiny star, a pompom and two marshmallows. The marshmallows didn’t freeze, but the pompom was frozen even in the middle because it absorbed the water. For the four empty spaces in the tray, I added drops of food coloring. I overfilled some of the spaces and the colors started to spill over into the other spaces and mix before the cubes froze.
I took two silicone cupcake holders and made cupcake shaped ice cubes. It was one of my favorite parts of the tub and now I’m looking for other things around the house that would be neat to put water in and freeze. I also included ice cubes shaped liked hearts.






After everything was frozen, I put all the ice cubes into the tub with some sponges, cups, funnels, a spatula with points, straws, eye droppers, a turkey baster, a shovel, a paint brush and q-tips to explore the ice with. They can find treasures within the ice cubes, look at mixing colors, experience the ice melting and play with the water.

Snowflake patterning

I’ve found these different colored snowflake pictures on Google Images to use for sorting and patterning. You can print out two or three copies of each picture cut them out and laminate them for sorting and patterning cards.
There are three patterns below as examples, but they can be arranged however the kids want. Patterning cards are good for beginners to learn the simple A B pattern, but they can be used for more complicated patterns as well. These can also be used as matching cards or to simply learn about colors. You could also find additional pictures of snowflakes that have different characteristics to pattern and sort with.

White Winter Sensory Tub & Matching Key

White Winter Sensory Tub and Matching Key
What’s in the tub:

Garland,
Clear stones,
Small white pompoms,
A larger white pompom,
White Christmas bow,
Wooden milk jug,
Snowflakes,
Cotton balls,
Cotton pads,
Cupcake liners,
Sponges,
Straws,
A white box,
A white dish,
Spoons,
Rolled up paper tube,
Sea shells,
Candle,
Tiny potpourri bag,
Two plush seals,
And a few bouncy balls.



We had this kind of activity set up for the kids a couple of weeks ago and they enjoyed it. I used mostly white items for winter and snow with garland as the filler. I took a few of the white items, paired them up, and taped one to a piece of paper to use a matching key. I only had one of the matching items in the sensory tub. For the key I used a snowflake Christmas ornament, cotton ball, cupcake liner, straw, spoon, sponge, cotton pad and lid to the box. The matching items were hidden in the garland. I also added some items that weren’t white and some additional white items that don’t go with the key. This way, the kids have to look at the key and the items and their colors more carefully. Not only that, but this way, there are more things to explore.




The little milk jug replica was a souvenir from a trip to a pumpkin patch when I was a kid. The potpourri bag came in a little gift set. The candle smells similar to the herbal essence shampoo. It smells really good. The seals are from Bath and Body Works. One came in a little bathtub gift set and the smaller seal is a Christmas tree ornament that I found the same day. Everything else was found around the house.