Snowmen at Night Language Intensive Unit Study for Early Learners
A “Snowmen at Night” Literature Unit Study for Homeschooling Families with Young Students
This Snowmen at Night unit study is a Language Intensive unit generally for students working at the preschool to second-grade level and is perfect for homeschool morning time or family-school learning.
Feel free to mix and match the lessons and activities from the Snowmen at Night companion guide for Upper Elementary to High School to find activities that best suit your children, their learning level, and their learning styles.
This Snowmen at Night Language Intensive Unit Study uses Living Books, along with English Language Arts, Phonemic Awareness, Fine & Gross Motor, Sensory, and Folktales to help your preschool to 2nd grade children practice and strengthen their speech, language, and writing skills while learning about the antics of snowmen.
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English Language Arts
I recommend reading the Snowmen at Night book at least once daily over the course of this unit to help your kiddos really know the story. If you get tired of reading it aloud for them, let them watch this Snowmen at Night read aloud video, but be sure to let them have a copy of the book to look at and explore on their own too.
Read Aloud Living Picture Books
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by Mark Buehner is a sweet story of a boy’s imagining when his snowman looks different the next day. He imagines that his snowman has fun at night while he is sleeping. The use of light and shadow in the illustrations really bring this book to life!
(Optional) Snowmen at Work by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by Mark Buehner is a stand-alone sequel to the previous title. It explores the idea that snowmen have jobs like shoveling the sidewalks or drilling bits of coal for snowmen teeth. Just for laughs, the last page supposes that a snowman sits in the Oval Office! If your kids like this book, you may want to check out our sister site’s huge Community Helpers Unit to learn more about the jobs people in your community have.
Independent Readers
Snow by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Lauren Stringer perfectly describes the magical feelings of a snow day shared with friends and family. Easy text is at a first to second-grade reading level
Another Cynthia Rylant selection for first and second graders is Henry and Mudge and the Snowman Plan, illustrated by Sucie Stevenson. All of my kids have loved the Henry and Mudge series! In this book, Henry and his dad (and Mudge, too) decide to enter a snowman into the local snowman contest.
Read Aloud Living Books
Select one of these books for a family read-aloud this week if you are adding in older kids.
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner is based upon an old legend. In this story, Willy tries to save the family farm after his grandfather becomes sick. Willy believes he can save the farm if he wins the National Dogsled Race. This is pretty quick read-aloud (you can probably finish it in one day) and is available on Kindle Unlimited as well as Audible and Hoopla.
This next choice for a read-aloud will be familiar to Little House fans: The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The winter of 1880-1881 in South Dakota was brutal and the Ingalls family survived because of their ingenuity, determination, and Almonzo Wilder’s dangerous and courageous trip across the prairie to get wheat for the townfolks. Available on Hoopla and Audible. My family enjoyed the audio version performed by Cherry Jones.
Folktale
This snowman folktale is one of Hans Christian Anderson’s lesser-known stories, The Snowman. The snowman is only a day old, and not understanding how things work, falls in love with heating stove. Watch the video of this tale, created by The FairyTaler.
Wordless Book
Wordless books are one of the best ways to encourage children to tell original stories. Pick up a copy of the book, The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs, at your library or watch the video from U4iA. (Amazon Prime also has a video of the book). Then encourage your child to retell what he or she thinks happened. There are no wrong answers or ideas in storytelling, so let them use their imaginations.
Literary Analysis
After reading Snowmen at Night, have your students imagine what that snowman does at night and during the daytime. Have them compare what the snowman does with what they do at night and during the day. Use the Early Learners Literary Analysis worksheets in the Free Resource Library for students who are not writing at the sentence level and have them draw pictures. Use the Upper Elementary to Middle School Literary Analysis worksheets for students who are able to write at the sentence level.
Writing
Grammar
Review what an adjective is (it describes nouns) with this video from Jack Hartmann
Work on adding adjectives into your student’s writing to make their writing more descriptive and interesting. Use the Early Learners Writing with Adjectives worksheets from the Free Resource Library for younger, pre-writing children and the Upper Elementary to Middle School with Adjectives worksheets for children writing at the sentence level.
Copywork and Narration
Copywork and narration are a real-life way to work on grammar skills. Use the Snowmen at Night Level 1 copywork and Narration page from the Free Resource Library. The updated version in the Unit Study bundle has both print and cursive copywork.
For the narration pages, select the passage that best matches your child’s writing and spelling abilities. Then, read the passage to your student all the way through first. Then read it again, 2 or 3 words at a time, giving them time to write it down. Tell them to do their best, but not to get “caught up” in making sure it’s all spelled correctly while they are writing. They can go back when they are done to fix any spelling if they want.
When they are done, give them the original page (that you read off of) and let them “check” it and fix any spelling or punctuation mistakes. Talk to them about any spelling or punctuation rules that they used, just to help cement it in their brains. It’s really important for them to check it, not you. It seems to give them ownership of it and makes them remember the correction.
Use the Snowmen at Night Copywork Worksheets in the Free Resource Library to practice grammar and handwriting. There are 3 pages in 3 different levels for early elementary, upper elementary, and middle/high school. The early elementary and upper elementary levels come in both print and cursive.
Writing Stories
This writing lesson has two objectives: One, for your kids to learn that stories have three main parts, a beginning, a middle, and an end. And two, to help them learn to use their creative juices for telling a story that they made up (and later recalling that story to retell).
For this writing project you can either use the Snowman Writing Form in the Snowmen at Night Unit Study Bundle or you can use 3 paper plates. If you are using the paper plates, have them cut one of the plates into a smaller circle and then stack them on the table to look like a snowman.
If you are using the Snowman Writing Form, have them cut out the circles and the snowman parts that they’d like to use. Let them assemble their snowman using a glue stick and/or tape.
Next, have them write a story about what their snowman does at night (or tell you the story while you write it out for them). Use the smaller (head) circle or paper plate for the beginning of the story. Next, write the middle of the story on the body paper plate or circle.
Finally, write the end of the story on the last paper plate or circle. Decorate the circles to look like a snowman for fun, if they want.
If you haven’t done so already, tape the snowman together and hang up. Encourage them to retell the story to family and friends using the snowman as a prompt to help them remember the story.
Story Telling
In addition to letting your child practice their story-telling with their snowman story that they just wrote, let them practice putting the events from the Snowmen at Night story into their proper sequence with the Snowmen at Night Story Sequencing Cards in the Snowmen at Night Unit Study Bundle.
Phonemic Awareness
This week, help your preschoolers and kindergartners with their reading readiness by focusing on 1.) beginning sounds (phonology), 2.) rhyming words and 3.) syllable segmenting.
To learn more about the importance of phonemic awareness and how it relates to reading, read this post.
Phonology
We’ll be sorting consonant sounds into “quiet” and “motor”sounds this week. Use the Snowmen at Night Phonology Beginning Sounds & Rhyming packet from the Free Resource Library.
Have your child decide if the beginning sound is a quiet sound or a motor sound. Quiet sounds (like p, t, or k) don’t use your voice, whereas motor sounds do use your voice (like b, d, or g). Be sure that you are only saying the consonant sound and not adding a vowel sound at the end like /-ah/ or /ee/. (The vowels sounds use voice and will confuse your kiddos).
I like to have kids place their hand on their throat to feel the vibrations of their vocal folds (their “motor”) to help them decide if it’s a quiet sound or a motor sound.
If your kiddos are doing speech therapy for their /s/ sounds, print out this snowman themed s words speech therapy game for some extra practice.
Rhyming
When you read the book, Snowmen at Night, you’ll notice that every other stanza rhymes. Read the book again with your kids, and emphasize the rhyming words to help your kids be able to pick out the rhyming words.
Next, use the Rhyming word list from the Snowmen at Night Phonology Beginning Sounds & Rhyming packet in the Free Resource Library.
Say the two rhyming words and see if your kids can come up with another word that rhymes with those two words. For example, you’d say, “hill, thrill”. Then your child might say “dill” or “mill” or “still”.
Finally, see how many rhyming words you can think of for each set of rhyming words.
Syllables
Use the Snowmen at Night Syllable Sorting Worksheets from the Free Resource Library. Have your kids cut apart the word cards and sort them into four piles by the number of syllables in each word.
To make it easier, have your kids clap as they say the word, clapping for each syllable. For example, for the word “snowman”, they would clap as they say “snow”, and again as they say “man”.
These words were taken from the books Snowmen at Night and it’s companion book, Snowmen at Work by Caralyn & Mark Buehner.
Spelling
Research shows that kids retain information better when they are using their bodies, so try a kinetic spelling practice this week.
Have your kids write out their spelling words in a salt tray instead of on paper. You could use either regular table salt, or for kids that won’t try to taste it, use epson salt, which have larger crystals.
Vocabulary
Use the Snowmen at Night Vocabulary Cards from the Free Resource Library to learn new words from the book Snowmen at Night.
You can use the vocabulary words as spelling words, as a word wall to practice copywork, or as flashcards to work on memorizing definitions.
You can also use the cards along with the definition cards to play a matching type of memory game, or just making sure that they understand the concepts.
Most of the original printables in this Snowmen at Night Unit are available individually for free in the Free Resource Library. However, for your convenience, you can also get all of the updated printables in a single download in the Whole Child Homeschool Resource Store 💙
Music
Here’s a sweet snowman music video from Visual Musical Minds that shows the notes on a musical staff along with the words. This is great for learning the notes of a scale. If your kids have DeskBells or BoomWhackers, this song would be a great one to learn to play with those bells.
Gross and Fine Motor
Fine Motor
Scissor Skills +Art: Make this coffee filter snowflake craft to practice scissor skills and the motor skill of using a spray bottle.
Fake Snow: Create some fake snow to promote tons of fine motor hand strengthening. It’s super easy! Stir together 1 cup of hair conditioner (I bought some from the dollar store to use for this project) with 5 1/2 to 6 cups of baking soda.
Yep, that’s it!
My kids played with this fake snow for over an hour and have asked to play with it every day since!
One of my daughters has a really difficult time with tasks that require some hand strength, so I gave her a cookie scooper that she could use to make snowballs and snowmen with the fake snow.
You could also use an ice cream scooper. (FYI, you can get big bags of baking soda at large box stores like Costco and Sam’s Club).
Gross Motor
Build a snowman, toilet paper style. Let your kids roll each other up in a roll of toilet paper, adding construction paper buttons, a scarf, and sticks for arms. Even your big kids will get a kick out of this activity! I used it many years with my high school homeschool student council kids and they loved it.
Sensory and Body Awareness
This time of year when it can be dangerous to go outside in the cold, it can be important to find other ways to help your kids burn energy through “heavy work” activities.
Play-dough is a fantastic way to get in some heavy work, plus it doubles as a fine motor activity. Win-win!
Use my recipe to make Easy, No-Melt Snow Dough playdough, either regular or gluten-free.
For more winter and snow sensory bins and activities, check out these Snow Sensory Bins to Cure Cabin Fever.
Arts and Crafts
Create some adorable snowmen of your own with these instructions for a pinecone snowman craft.
Your littlest ones will be able to complete a snow painting using these easy instructions for an Easy Snowball Painting.
Go back through the Snowmen at Night book and look at the illustrations in the book. Talk to your kids about how the artist makes the scenes bright with light even through they are all nighttime paintings. If they are interested, look up some paintings by the American artist, Thomas Kincade, whose nickname was “Painter of Light”.
More language-based activities to extend your Snowman Unit Study
To learn what happens on a Snow Day when the snow temporarily shuts down the town, complete the Preschool Snow Day Unit Study on our sister site, Homeschool Helper Online.
For your toddlers learning their colors, check out the Color Sorting and Matching Cards and Mat from Fun with Mama.
If your kids are into craft projects, have them select one of these fun Snowmen at Night crafts to do.
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