Not only can you make the snowman just like you’d like him, you can design your background, plus – decide what your snowman will paint! Nana’s How to draw a painting snowman with chalk pastels is perfect for your cozy, winter homeschool art time.
Snowman Paints!
Painting with chalk pastels is such a wonderful activity for the whole family to enjoy around the homeschool table. If you have never painted with Nana before, we invite you to grab her FREE set of Get Started in Chalk Pastel Art Video Art Lessons. All it takes is 1, 2, 3! A starter set of chalk pastels, construction paper and Nana’s art lessons.
Free Art Lesson: How To Draw a Snowman for Your Winter Homeschool
Enjoy this early art lesson Nana shared with her grandchildren around Tricia’s kitchen table and recorded for you!
Suggested supplies: white or light blue construction paper. Black, red, purple, green, yellow and blue chalk pastels. Pictured: Our favorite chalk pastels and chalk pastels drawer storage.
See how Nana’s grandchildren painted their snowmen here.
Growing a love of art at You ARE an ARTiST is a multi-generational passion! Tricia is Nana’s daughter and a mama of five children. Nana shared her first chalk pastel art lessons with her grandchildren around Tricia’s kitchen table. Homeschooling since 2000, Tricia has seen the fruits of home education with three homeschool grads so far!She shares the art and heart of homeschooling at Hodgepodge and is author of the book, Help! I’m Homeschooling! She and her husband, Steve, are also owners of The Curriculum Choice.
Winter is a wonderful time for tea in your homeschool. Most of us have seen lovely homeschool tea time spread photos on social media and feel intimidated to try our own. Or perhaps, you aren’t quite sure where to begin.
Well, I want to share a poetry tea time with you today that is easy to set up, and every bit counts as educational. And, if your children are anything like mine, they will be asking when the next poetry tea time is.
One of the best poems to enjoy during winter is the renowned Robert Frost’s, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening. It is one of those poems that instantly comes to life with all of the delights of winter.
You ARE An Artist’s art tutorial of Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening will help you round out an entire hands-on lesson for your family to enjoy.
We do think this poem is worthy of a special tea time. This time of year can be busy and leave us feeling stressed about the holidays. But Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening helps us remember it is ok to stop and linger a bit at God’s wonderful creation. Like the traveler, we all have obligations to get to. But we also can stop and take in the beauty around us, if even for a moment. Often, that is precisely the refreshment we need.
That’s is why we think this tea time with chalk pastels will leave you and your children feeling refreshed and renewed for the winter season.
What Do You Need For A Snowy Art Homeschool Tea Time
The supplies you need for the art lesson are minimal; chalk pastels and construction paper. And a Clubhouse Membership from You Are An Artist, not only to enjoy this chalk pastel project, but you will also get over 700 other art lessons that your entire family can do and a beautiful poem to print out.
We love the picture bookStopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening that is illustrated by Susan Jeffers too. The beautiful illustrations that accompany Robert Frost’s words are a perfect combination to share with your family.
The fun part is what else you can add! We like to enjoy tea or hot cocoa to drink and make an entire experience of it. The kids sip as I read.
We also add some treats like tree-shaped sugar cookies or something white to signify snow. But you can add anything that your kids might find exciting. I think ice cream would also be fun for this tea time. Remember, there are no rules!
You may be wondering if you have to add any snacks or drinks. I will share with you why I almost always do. My children linger longer with something to sip or snack. It’s true. If I want to read to my kids and keep their attention, I add a little something that counts as a treat. It also makes poetry tea time with art a special time to look forward to. We like to celebrate the end of each week with art.
Once you decide on all of the fun stuff, now let’s prepare our educational resources.
If you are afraid that you can’t count art or poetry tea time as educational, you might need a fresh new perspective. Let me assure you, art and poetry tea time is 100% educational. Let’s discuss all of the educational aspects of this single project.
What Can We Learn From Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Tea Time
New Art Techniques. Your child will learn chalk pastel techniques to create a lovely piece of art. Hands-on art with chalk pastels is an excellent fit for all types of learners, and it’s a great way to foster their creative expression.
History. You can dive into the biography of Robert Frost; he was a well-known American poet with four Pulitzer Prizes. You may very well have heard some of his most famous works already! Older children can help research his life and other poems if you want to travel down a few new rabbit trails together!
Poetry.Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening is not just a beautiful poem; there is much you can learn from it alone. If you have a high school student, you may want to discuss the poem’s rhyme scheme and other poetic devices. It is full of imagery and literary devices, all worth pointing out as well.
Nature.Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening fits perfectly into winter nature study. If you are working through a winter nature study curriculum, this tea time and art project will coincide nicely.
Togetherness. Winter is the best time to cozy up with warm drinks, create art, and discuss poetry. Even your earliest learners can sit in a draw with chalk on a piece of construction paper while listening along.
We hope you enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of winter with this special poetry tea time! Celebrate winter nature and bond over the arts together as a family with books, art, and tea.
More Delightful Homeschool Learning Activities
There are even more homeschool learning opportunities with these ideas!
Courtney is a Jesus-pursuing, native Texan, homeschool mom of three, and she believes homeschooling can be a peaceful and productive rhythm. At Grace, Grow & Edify she helps families create peaceful homeschooling atmospheres through faith, organizational strategies, and cultivating strong roots at home.She is also the founder of Homeschool Mastery Academy.
Learn how to draw an Olympic Torch with chalk pastels and Nana’s homeschool art lesson for The Winter or Summer Games! There are so many art lessons ready for you the celebrate The Games in a hands on way in your homeschool.
How to Draw an Olympic Torch with Chalk Pastels
You can enjoy this sample lesson, The Torch. This is one of the many lessons for both summer and winter games included in The Games Clubhouse Edition in the You ARE an ARTiST Complete Clubhouse.
Suggested supplies: white construction paper. Blue, light blue, black, white, red, orange, yellow chalk pastels.
Share your art! Draw an Olympic Torch with Chalk Pastels with Nana’s art lesson and please tag us on social media. You can tag @chalkpastelart on Instagram and use the hashtag #youareanartist – we can’t wait to see!
More Homeschool Learning with The Games
Celebrate The Games with Chalk Pastel Art Ideas – From ancient Greece and the Roman coliseum to the modern games and all the sports competitions, this is a great opportunity to build a homeschool unit study around The Games. Plus, chalk pastels are a fun addition to your Olympic learning.
Paint The Games medals or a medal ceremony!
You ARE an ARTiST Complete Clubhouse members have access to ALL of Nana’s art lessons for The Games for both summer and winter sports! Plus, artist clubhouse members enjoy a wonderful I Drew It Then I Knew It The Games companion curriculum workbook with Fun Facts, a printable medal tracker and more!
Enjoy the upcoming Games by using these art lessons to connect kids to the historic and symbolic nature of the world’s greatest competition!
Growing a love of art at You ARE an ARTiST is a multi-generational passion! Tricia is Nana’s daughter and a mama of five children. Nana shared her first chalk pastel art lessons with her grandchildren around Tricia’s kitchen table. Homeschooling since 2000, Tricia has seen the fruits of home education with three homeschool grads so far!She shares the art and heart of homeschooling at Hodgepodgemom and is author of the book, Help! I’m Homeschooling! She and her husband, Steve, are also owners of Homeschool Nature Study and The Curriculum Choice.
This winter homeschool snowflake study combines the beauty of winter with the fascinating life of Snowflake Bentley.
In our part of New England, the arrival of the first snow is greatly anticipated. It can happen as early as October or as late as January. We watch the sky and weather reports eagerly for this delightful precipitation.
What is this somewhat magical weather phenomenon that turns ordinary dreary rainfall into a puffy playscape for kids of all ages?
It seems hard to believe it’s simply the temperature dropping! Yet, it really is that simple. Let the red line drop below thirty-two degrees and our dreams of a white winter crystalize into reality! Our breath plumes white to match the snow, and suddenly the world is renewed!
In our house, my boys have their boots on as soon as there’s a skim of snow to make tracks in. Snow angels, snowmen, snow ball fights, and sledding take up hours of their time until they’ve quite worn the snow out!
Whether you get snow in your area or not, you can create a winter snowflake study of this beautiful white fluffy stuff in your homeschool this year! Just gather a few simple materials to show your kids the wonder of these winter crystals.
“The snow crystals . . . come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Nature, but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade way. But though the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of the autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again.” ― Wilson A. Bentley
Learning About Snowflakes
There is no person better to start learning about snowflakes from than the man who dedicated his life to capturing these ephemeral water-stars.
Wilson Bentley of Vermont said, “… from the beginning, it was the snowflakes that fascinated me most.” We agree, snowflakes are simply mesmerizing!
Wilson Bentley’s website contains a rich and lengthy biography, as well as several articles about snowflakes written by Bentley himself. Bookmark this site for some “mother culture” reading time as you plan your homeschool snowflake study. Bentley’s articles are written with as much beauty as their subject matter.
Snowflake Bentley Homeschool Read Aloud
As the first person to ever capture a snowflake’s intricacy on camera, Wilson Bentley’s passion for snowflakes earned him the nickname “Snowflake Bentley.” His story is best enjoyed in the picture book by the same name.
This read-aloud book is distinctive in that it uses two side-by-side narratives to share Snowflake Bentley’s story. The narrative under the woodcut illustrations lyrically tells the story of Bentley’s life and passion for snow. The margin text adds facts and scientific details that help the reader understand the excitement and importance of Bentley’s work.
Bentley grew from a young boy who loved snow to a teenager who pursued his passions to a young man who determinedly persevered through failures. He knew there were “treasures in the snow” and he would gift these treasures to the world.
And so he did. After decades of effort, he had a vast collection of snowflake photos compiled into a book: Snow Crystals. From passionate child to “snowflake authority” figure, Snowflake Bentley’s story is both endearing and insightful.
Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.” — Wilson Bentley
A Snowflake Bentley Study For All Ages In Your Homeschool
After reading about the startling beauty of snowflakes, children will definitely want to explore more!
My boys took turns creating chalk pastel paintings to celebrate all things snow.
We started with the lesson on Snowflake Bentley and his camera. This lesson is perfect for older students because it’s a bit more intricate.
The preschool lesson on snowflakes in Snow Clubhouse is short and sweet and delightful for beginners or younger students. Even a few minutes of painting with Nana helps kids to pause for a moment and consider the wonder of these tiny, transient winter gems. Nana’s patient instruction guides kids to wonder at the uniqueness of snowflakes as they draw.
Bird in Snow is the perfect lesson to connect snowflakes to wildlife in your backyard – plus it uses black paper like Bentley’s black snowflake tray! The contrast of the chalk pastels on different colored backgrounds is stunning.
My youngest painted Welcome Winter Snowman to celebrate the fun we can all enjoy with snowflakes!
More Winter Homeschooling Resources
These snowy treasures of Bentley’s are well-celebrated in Nana’s Chalk Pastel lessons! Check out the ideas in this Winter Solstice celebration post.
From a snowflake study, you can move easily to exploring other winter weather topics. Enjoy lessons on frosted leaves, icicles, beautiful frozen winter lakes at midnight and more with Nana. Your kids will see how snow, with its delicate, icy touch, creates beauty in all aspects of wintertime.
Along with our chalk pastel lessons, we added in a few other hands-on craft activities.
We were blessed beyond delight when the morning after painting our snow pictures with Nana, we had a suddenly snowfall! I handed out black construction paper and we rushed out to play Snowflake Bentley and collect our own snow crystals. Although I’m no photographer like he was, I managed to snap a few closeups to capture the detail of a handful of our flakes.
The boys and I studied my photos later, commenting on the shapes, edges, and variety in our small sampling. When we draw attention to the fleeting beauty of snow, we’re teaching children to pay attention to even the smallest of things. This skill of noticing is foundational to keep our children enthralled with learning.
Later in the week, the boys and I made snowflakes. Snowflake cutouts can be simple and fun to make. Since my husband’s family is Polish, every so often, we attempt the Polish paper cutting technique of Gwiazdy (or, stars). Very similar to cutting paper snowflakes, but with more detailed cut-out designs. Just like snowflakes, no two are ever the same, no matter how we might try!
We also designed snowflakes out of pipe cleaners. Extend this activity into a science lesson by making your own snow crystals! Kids can make actual crystal structures using a borax solution (especially wondrous if you live in an area that won’t have snow).
You might also enjoy a Silent Winter Snow Walk using your senses. Find out how with our sister site, Homeschool Nature Study’s Outdoor Hour Challenge Instagram post!
However you choose to study snowflakes, whether reading, painting, or crafting, there is no doubt snowflakes are one of nature’s most beautiful wonders. The melt-away beauty of snowflakes never fails to melt hearts of nature lovers everywhere.
Of all the forms of water the tiny six-pointed crystals of ice called snow are incomparably the most beautiful and varied. – Wilson Bentley
Julie is a teacher, writer and homeschool mom. Her blog Happy Strong Home shares encouragement for cherishing children, enjoying motherhood, and growing strong families. Discover homeschool resources, natural living tips, and family activity ideas. Julie has been featured on Million Praying Moms, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, and the Melissa and Doug blog. She offers writing workshops and a “homeschool neighborhood” community to support parents in their homeschool adventures. Find Julie on Instagram to be the first to know when new workshops and community events are available.
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