Continent Study: Antarctica inspired Art

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I really do feel that we made the most of our one day of snow!  The older ones played in the park with their friends having snowball fights, they built a snow man, I built the younger ones an Antarctic Research Laboratory and proceeded to do waaaaay more experiments with snow than is strictly sane.  In my snowy madness I came up with a great idea for an art lesson.  Painting on snow.  Oh. My. Goodness.  The little ones painted their snow for ages.  Ages.  This was such a fabulous activity, I just wish we had more than one days worth of snow each year.  Ah well.  We certainly enjoyed the small amount we did have.

I collected lots of snow and packed it tightly into two cat litter trays (we don’t use them for the cats obviously!!).  It is important to cram it in tightly because this gives a lovely firm and smooth ‘canvas’ to paint on:

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I had bought some finger painting jars of multiple colours for £3 from the works and I had hoarded them away for just a time such as this:

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As you can see, these paints went on smoothly and easily and showed up brightly.  It was almost like they were made for this purpose!

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This activity absorbed them completely:

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For at least an hour, very possibly longer:

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And produced some truly stunning results:

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For all of you who are knee deep in snow, do feel free to send some our way.  I know two little girls who would love to do some more snow art and a mummy who would enjoy watching the delight on their faces.

Childhood is made of memories like this.