It's January, and time for snow! We read Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, the true story of Wilson Bentley from Vermont, a young boy who loved to study snowflakes. When he got a camera, he learned to photograph them, and his pictures are still around today! This book also won the Caldecott Medal in 1999 for its illustrations. We wondered how illustrator Mary Azarian could have made such detailed woodcuts for these illustrations. Look!
After the story, we looked at some of Wilson Bentley's beautiful snowflake photos. We noticed the symmetry in each of the six branches of the snow crystals.
Next, we made snowflakes from ironed-flat coffee filters. We had small coffee filters from a home coffee maker and huge filters from the coffee machine at Dunkin' Donuts! Thanks for the donation, Sherrie!
We folded the filters first in half...
then in quarters....
and finally into sixths.
Then came the fun part: cutting into the sides and the center of this wedge of paper. And here's one of the results.
Six-sided symmetry!
We also drew around some of the "snowflakes" elements - the holes, the cuts, the edges - using watercolor markers. We dripped drops of water on the colors to make them run and watched the capillary action of the filter paper spread the color.
The only thing that might have made this session better would be to catch and study real snowflakes outside. Like Snowflake Bentley, we know that involves a special kind of snow. We will watch for it in the next snowstorms this winter!
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