Snow Sliding.

Today the Year 6 and 3 Forest School groups teamed up for some frosty fun. 

We began our session by talking about how we can stay safe in the cold weather. Bailey said that wearing hats and gloves as well as our waterproofs would help to keep us warm. Michael suggested we could have a warm drink if we started to feel cold. Reece said if we start to really really cold we should come inside to warm up. Farhan suggested we could build a fire. Unfortunately, the sub zero temperatures have caused metal storage container to freeze shut so we can't get to any of our firelighting and safety kit! 
The boys agreed that they wouldn't throw snow at each other as there were hard icy pieces mixed in with the snow and someone could get hurt.

Our first fabulously messy activity was a spot of snow painting. We filled some nearly empty paint bottles with water to create our squirty paint guns. Farhan found that he could use the paint to write everyone's name in the snow. Michael and Bailey experimented with what patterns they could make if they poured the paint down a plastic tube. Bailey and Alex made multi coloured snow 'stones'. 

After the paint had been used, the boys said they would like to sledge down the banking. We didn't have any sledges so we had to improvise. We had some blue plastic trays which were perfect for the job. They tried out a few different places on the banking to see which made the best sledging slope. Bailey tried sliding down  without a tray, but found he could not travel as far. Michael used two of the plastic painting tubes as ski poles to help push himself down the banking.
Farhan demonstrated to the group how to 'do a 360' whilst travelling down the slope and this led to lots of different methods for sliding - forwards, sideways, backwards, on your belly, on your back, in pairs and even backwards in threes!!

Whilst the Year 6 group continued sliding, the Year 3 boys decided they wanted to create a snow picture on the trays. Bailey and Alex used one tray as a scoop to collect snow with and tip it on to another tray. Bailey said he wanted to draw a face in the snow. He began flattening the snow down with his hands but it was sticking to his gloves. I asked him why the snow was sticking to his gloves. He said 'because they are wooly and it's making the snow stick'.

Michael suggested they use one of the tubes as a rolling pin to flatten the snow.
Bailey asked if he could bring his snow tray inside to see what would happen to it. We left the tray in the corridor and the Year 6 group went to check on it some time later.

 The snow hadn't melted. I asked Imath why he thought this was. He said that because the door had been left open the corridor was too cold for the snow to melt. The boys agreed that if the snow was moved to a warmer place in school, it would melt. I asked the boys whether snow was a solid, a liquid or a gas. They all agreed that it was a solid. They then had a discussion about whether there was such thing as liquid snow. They eventually agreed that when snow melts it turns from a solid to a liquid, but that then we call it water and that if we kept heating it up until it boiled (like when we boil water in the kelly kettle) it turns from a liquid to a gas.