This is part of my 15 Minute Focus series. Children either draw a snowman (practicing tracing circles) and/or build one with shapes.

Objective: Children will be able to describe a basic snowman shape (3 circles, biggest one on the bottom.)

Supplies:

• felt triangles, squares and/or rectangles, circles (could also use shape magnets, shape stickers, foam shapes, or cut paper shapes)
• circle shapes to trace around – I used a button, a plastic lid, and a metal end from an old juice can – you can use anything, just make sure they are three different sizes
• paper, pencils

Activity

I passed out assorted felt shapes to everyone. We sorted them by color, then we sorted them by type of shape. We talked about how many sides each shape had, we counted the number of corners each had.

I asked them to draw the shapes. (Some of them can barely do a circle, some made all these shapes, plus stars and hearts well. I encouraged each of them, whatever level they are at.)

I asked them how you make a snowman – we talk about making three snowballs – the one on the bottom needs to be biggest so it doesn’t tip over. (Note to self: next time I do this, I could bring in playdough and model this in 3-D!)

I asked what shapes we would use to draw a snowman. I asked them to “free hand” draw three circles on top of each other. (You can see the blue circles one child drew in the photo above.) Then I showed them how to trace around a circle. Then I told them to flip over their paper, and showed them how we can trace three circles and add features to make a snowman. I encouraged them to choose three different sizes of things to trace. (See photo.)

Song

Song: (tune: skip to my lou)
Snow is falling, what do I do? Snow is falling, what do I do?
Snow is falling, what do I do? What do I do, my darling

…I’ll build a snowman bigger than you! … 
…I’ll ride my sled fast, how about you? … 

Alternate

Supplies: felt boards, felt circles, squares and triangles, small pompoms, pasta that would be a good snowman nose, elbow macaroni pasta for smiles, paper, pencils, book

The second year I did this, I didn’t look back at these notes about tracing circles, so I did it slightly differently, using felt shapes. I’ll summarize that here to give an idea of your options.

I asked them how many shapes you need to make a snowman. They said three. I put a square, circle and triangle on my feltboard. They told me I needed three circles, so I laid three circles down side by side. They said I needed to stack them to make a tall snowman. I stacked three circles with the smallest on the bottom. They clarified I needed to have the big circle on the bottom. I set a big collection of felt circles on the table, gave them each a felt board and asked them to find three different sizes of circles and each build a snowman. Then I put out felt squares and triangles and asked them to build a house next to the snowman. Then we added pompoms for eyes, then pasta for noses and for mouths.

I handed out paper, and they each drew a snowman.

Then I read Snowballs by Lois Ehlert (video preview) and then told them to decorate their snowman drawing.