I saw this Popsicle stick snowflake craft on Pinterest and immediately fell in love! My preschooler loves Popsicle stick crafts, and he has been itching to get ready for Christmas, so this was a perfect fit for a recent Saturday morning.
We made this project a bit more kid-friendly in two ways: we used regular Elmers instead of hot glue, and I let my son go hog wild with his own snowflake design. If you have older kids, you can use this to work on more technical aspects of geometry. Natural snowflakes have six-fold symmetry — i.e. 60° rotational symmetry — so you can discuss and demonstrate those concepts, as well as use a protractor to measure the angles. We are not quite at that level at age three, but we did talk about the types of angles we were making: acute, right, obtuse, and straight. My son knows these terms well already, thanks to the incredible Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland
Also, as a logistical side note, if your little ones aren’t trustworthy with a glue bottle (so, if they’re normal), you can squeeze a small puddle of glue onto a plate and let them dip to use it. Works like a charm.
Once we were done constructing our snowflakes, we gave them a few hours for the glue to dry (during which time we obviously set up an obstacle course of couch cushions, visible in the background below). Then little man handled the painting pretty much on his own. I went back and touched up a few thin spots, but Popsicle sticks and craft paint are this guy’s jam.
Our finished snowflakes are ready to go once it’s time to deck the halls. We’ll see if I can manage to wait until after Thanksgiving this year…
PS,
These are the greatest children’s math books of all time. No home should be without them.
