It's another manic snow day!

Anybody up for some deck time?

An hour and a half to clear the driveway and sidewalk this morning.  That's after going through the same routine yesterday in the late afternoon.  Don't get me wrong, I love all this beautiful, clean white stuff.  Especially once it is cleared away and the sun comes out to melt all the walking and driving surfaces back down.  I can't think of a more beautiful place to live.  The temperatures are really nice today and the sun is thinking about making an appearance.  Since the weather man is forecasting a gradual warm up to the low 40s later in the week,  I'm not too worried about where to pile another downfall. I bet  you southerners never think about those sort of things.  We really do get to the point sometime where you run out of places to pile the new snow.  As I clear the driveway I have to consider placement so we have visibility to back out of the driveway.  If you can imagine, the literal mountains of snow in the outer edges of all the public parking areas.  Resourceful kids can be seen sledding down those as well as the hills of the local parks.   It's pristine, it's beautiful, and it's fun if you are a snow person.  Having actually grown up in Arkansas where a couple of inches mixed with ice was a big storm,  I think I've adjusted fairly well to living in Western Massachusetts. I'm handy with a snow blower and have learned how to direct the snow to keep it from landing back down on the drive or sidewalk. I like to think I've been New England-ized! So as I'm lounging here enjoying the warmth of the house and the beautiful view outside my window, I am thankful this Valentine's Day for even the snow!

And then....it snowed!

I admit I played a small trick on my precious little kindergarten class yesterday.  We read a wonderful book about a snow day titled "The Snowy Day" by Anna Milbourne and Elena Temporin.  After the reading, I told the students that we would try to bring some snow to New England by building snowmen.   Well, it worked.  Of course, I knew we had a storm predicted but, I'm sure it's exciting for the students to think they had a part in it all!  This is the view out my back window this morning.   Not the 4- 8" that was predicted, but a nice manageable coating of the gorgeous stuff.

I think these two suffered from warm temperatures and melted a bit

Using model magic, students practiced rolling balls in their hands, not on the tables to create a two ball snowmen.  This was stacking in 3D!  I had pre-dipped toothpicks in orange paint to make carrot noses and cut some small twigs off of the trees outside my classroom to create the arms for their snowmen.   Colored model magic was twisted to create the scarf which serves as a reinforcement for the joined areas and also a hat.  Students created hats in their own methods.  I had demonstrated how to roll the clay into a cone for those who were interested.  As is true of all young student works, they are adorable!

Students used black fine point markers to add their own faces and buttons