4 Winter Reads and Creative Crafts for the Classroom

Reading and crafting are a great way to support literacy in your classroom. These four winter-inspired books and crafts will not only warm up your students’ hands, hearts, and minds, but they’ll also help them remain actively engaged in the classroom, no matter how cold and blustery it is outside.

1.   The Snowy Day and the Super-Soft Snowball Craft

Young readers of The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, learn an important lesson about what happens when you put a snowball in your pocket! With this Super-Soft Snowball Craft, students make a snowball that can withstand the warmest of pockets.

What you need:

• • White yarn
  • Scissors

What you do:

• • Instruct students to hold up one hand with their fingers slightly spread apart, and then ask students to wrap one long piece of yarn around their fingers 40 times. (You may need to help students keep their thumbs out of the way.)
  • Ask students to carefully slide their hands out of the roll then help them tie a small piece of yarn horizontally around the center of the roll to create loops on each side. (It should look like a butterfly.)
  • Children can now cut open all of the loop holes on each side.
  • Have students spread the yarn apart and fluff to create an even snowball look all around!

2.   The Biggest Snowman Ever and the Snowman Ornament Craft

In The Biggest Snowman Ever, by Steven Kroll, Clayton and Desmond realize great things happen when they work together. With this Snowman Ornament Craft, don’t be surprised if your students decide to work together and try their hand at making the biggest snowman ornament the world has ever seen!

What you need:

• • Craft paint in black and white
  • Paintbrush
  • Glue
  • Black marker
  • Googly eyes
  • 8-inch strip of ribbon
  • 8 craft sticks
  • 1 pompom (any color)

What you do:

• Ask students to glue 7 craft sticks side-by-side using a strong-hold glue. Lay the sticks on a flat surface and allow the glue to dry.
• Glue the last craft stick horizontally across the other 7 sticks, about 1-inch up from the end of the sticks. The horizontal craft stick will form the brim on the snowman’s hat.
• Once the glue has dried, encourage students to paint the brim of the hat and above with black paint or another color they like.
• Instruct students to paint the rest of the sticks white.
• Once the paint dries, glue 2 googly eyes just below the brim of the hat, followed by the pompom below the eyes, to form the nose.
• Students can use black market to draw a mouth.
• Using a strong-hold glue, attach the ribbon to the back of the snowman. Once dry, students can hang up their snowman decoration!