Snow Melt

Will snow melt faster in your bare hands or while wearing a mitten?  Make your prediction and then perform the experiment.  Wear one mitten only outside.  Place a scoop of snow in the bare hand and a scoop of snow in the hand wearing the mitten.  Try and make the scoops as equal as possible.  Did you make the correct prediction? 
Be sure to discuss that the snow melted faster in the bare hand because of body heat and that the mitten acted as an insulator.

Freeze A Bubble

For this activity to work, the temperature must be below 32 degrees.  Blow a bubble and catch it on the wand.  Wait a few seconds and watch as the bubble freezes.  It will then turn into a crystal ball and then shatter like glass.  The children will see the ice crystals form on the bubble.  Also try dipping the wand into the bubble mixture and hold the wand without blowing the bubble and watch a crystal form across the wand.

Another Snow Melt Experiment

Will snow melt faster in plain water, in salt, or in salt water?  Make your predictions.  This would be a great experiment to graph.  Set out 3 pie pans (or other containers.)  Place water in the first pan, salt in the second pan and saltwater in the third pan.  Drop a scoop of snow in each of the three pans and watch to see which pan the snow melts the fastest.  You may want to explain after the experiment that snow melts the fastest in the saltwater because the salt lowers the freezing temperature and the water raises the temperature of the snow causing it to melt. 

Snowflake Viewer

Place a piece of black construction paper into the freezer.  When it snows, take the black construction paper out of the freezer and outside to catch snowflakes.  Examine the snowflakes with a magnifying glass. Be sure to count the sides of several of the snowflakes to verify that they do have six sides.

Block of Ice

Rinse out a milk carton.  Fill with water and freeze.  Remove the milk carton from the freezer and cut away the milk carton.  Lay the block of ice on its side and place rock salt in several places.  In each spot you have place the salt, drop several drops of food coloring.  As the ice begins to melt, watch the colors work their way through the block of ice.  This experiment demonstrates that salt melts snow and makes channels through the ice. 

Ice Eggs

This is a great sensory activity.  Fill several balloons with differing amounts of water. Try not to put more than three cups of water in a balloon.  Drop in a teaspoon or more of food coloring in each of the balloons.  Place in the freezer until frozen solid.  Peel off the balloon to reveal the colored ice eggs.  Have the children examine the balloons, since the air bubbles will have made different patterns in the ice eggs.  Experiment to see which egg melts first, can they be cracked open?  Place two or three balloons of different sizes in hot water to see which one will melt.  Stress that these are "ice eggs" that cannot be eaten.

Make Your Own Crystals

Mix 1/4 cup Epsom salts with 1/4 cup boiling water.  Pour the mixture into a shallow dish and let sit over night to dry. The mixture forms crystals. Children can use magnifying glasses to view the crystals. 

Painting Snow

Fill a squirt bottle with water and add a few drops of  food coloring.  Go outside and have fun spraying the snow.

Its Snowing Indoors!

Cut out 2 snowflakes for each child a little larger that their hand.  Cut a thin strip of paper and tape to the snowflake to make a loop to slip over the child's hand. Play a recording of  "The dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" by Tchaikovsky. Have them simulate snowflakes falling.  Call out slower or faster and allow the children to twirl around the room at different speeds. 

Indoor Snowball Fight

If it is too cold to go outside, just roll up some white tube socks and have an indoor snowball fight.