Mother Nature Provided Us A Treat, Learning and Fun...Making SNOW Cream is SNOW much fun!!!

It was back to school today after a snow day!  I got into my classroom to find that a snow drift was over my window...how could I use all of this snow to my advantage??!!!

Hmmm...

SNOW CREAM!!!

Thanks to a stumble upon the recipe last night, I 'stocked' up on the ingredients I would need and was hoping to find that outside my classroom's back door would be fresh, 'chocolate chip & lemon syrup' free powdery snow...and I did!

This is the 'scene' outside my back door (that drift on the left- yes- it is OVER my classroom window)!  No need to store our milk needed for the recipe in the fridge- it was only 10 degrees outside today!  I stuck the bottle right in the snow and got the bowl filled with 12 cups of snow!

I was SO excited...I couldn't wait for them to come in and share what we would be doing for snack today!

We met in our meeting area and I told them...

TODAY WE ARE MAKING 'SNOW CREAM'- ICE CREAM MADE FROM SNOW!!

Immediately I hear 'NOW, THIS is the BEST DAY ever!'  We hadn't even made it yet!

We completed our math lesson and math centers and then it was snack time!!

Time to bring in the ingredients!

I tripled the recipe...so we had 12 cups of snow, 1.5c of milk, 3/4c of sugar and 3/4T vanilla!

First you mix the sugar and vanilla into the snow.

Then you add the milk and keep stirring until you get a 'soft ice cream like' consistency...which was just enough for EVERYONE to get their turn to 'churn' it!  We did have to add a tad more milk than what the recipe called for to get it to be 'just right!'

It was ready for taste testing!!!

I scooped it out into individual cups...

We added some sprinkles...

MMMmmmmmmm!!!! (I wish you could really see his eyes/expression as he ate this!!)

I have to say...it REALLY was the BEST ice cream I have ever had!  It tastes more like vanilla 'ice milk' (might be because I used skim milk rather than 2% or whole) but it was out-of-this-world delicious!!

So we took a vote to see...and to no surprise...

It was unanimous!  EVERYONE loved snow ice cream!!!

BUT that wasn't the only fun we had with the snow today!! 

How could I pass up a lesson temperature and water/ice?!!

So I filled 3 cups with snow at varying levels

And we made predictions as to which would melt the fastest...

And then we began tracking and recording what we saw happening!

This was after 10 minutes inside...

This is after 40 minutes inside...

After 1 hour inside cup 1 had completely turned to water...

After and hour and a half cup 2 was all water...

And after nearly 2 hours cup 3 had melted!

We talked about why it happened that way (cup 1 had the least amount of snow, cup 3 had the most) and then we did a 'reverse' experiment...

We put them BACK OUT in the snow/cold! 

I had them predict what would happen...

'they will freeze'

'cup 1 will freeze the quickest'

'cup 3 will take the longest'

After about 30 min outside cup 1 had froze and after about 2 hours all 3 were frozen solid...

And again we discussed WHY?

Cup 1 froze the fastest because it had the littlest water.

We also got into discussions about temperature at which water freezes, how the snow FILLED the cup, but the water/ice did not, etc!  They were so intrigued...my room was filled with 'excitement buzz' and 'chatter' all day long...but I didn't mind it at all!  Winter comes but once a year!

They are predicting more snow this weekend and early next week...looks like Mother Nature will be filling our bellies, minds and my planbook!

I sent each of my kids home with the recipe today because many of them tried to 'save' a bit to show their families!  Since it was so simple and did not really require a lot of ingredients, I figured maybe families would want to give it a whirl!  Here is the recipe 'card' for you, as well as the adorable penguin graphic we used on both graphs today!  It is from Scrappin Doodles and can be downloaded for free from her TPT store! The recipe comes in both English and Spanish since a majority of my students come from Spanish speaking homes.

If you are lucky enough to live/teach where you can make snow cream and decide to try it out, I would LOVE to hear all about it!

Now I am off to prep some Groundhog goodies for next week...we'll have to wait and see what HE decides winter should do!

Until next post,