Snow Day Snow Cones

There’s a ton to do outside as the first beautiful, soft flakes of snow fall to the ground. But what about the day after? The snow is too icy to roll into snowmen, make snow angels in, or sled on, but you still want to have snow day fun. This is the perfect time to make snow cones!

Not the edible kind! Please do not eat these! Don’t eat the yellow - or purple, or green, or other colored - snow.

My girls are dying to get back into the snow the day after we got enough snow to have school cancelled. The problem is that somehow it’s 50 degrees out and the snow is virtually gone. Except on our winter wonderland of a deck. The deck is covered in frozen, packed snow.

So we invent a new snow day activity. Snow cones!

If you do not have Do A Dot paint markers, go get some right now. It’s the best! The paint is held in tubes so the kids can dot it on without making a mess or creating mounds of cleanup with brushes and water cups, etc.

We take those Do A Dot markers and a giant, self cleaning (ie melting) canvas and have ourselves a painting party.

There are only two easy steps.

Step One: Grab a Do a dot paint tube and stamp it on the snow.

Step Two: Get creative and have fun.

Then when everyone is satisfied with watching the snow turn colors and the paint spread on the icy snow, I show them what we can do with it.

We can scrape it up and mix it.

We can also scoop clean snow into test tubes and watch as the paint goes through the snow. I mention the idea of capillary action but mostly we just have fun.

Then we can tap the snow out and have a snow cone.

Look, Mom! No tube!

Luckily it was warm enough out that I was just wearing a sweater. We stayed out all afternoon! The girls made up a song about how we were the luckiest family because we have colored snow and no one else has any. Yep, those were the lyrics “We are the luckiest fam-i-ly! We have colored snow. No one else has any. Just our fam-i-ly.”

They couldn’t wait for Daddy to get home and see our beautiful deck. We all enjoyed looking at the colorful deck for that day and the next. By the time they went to bed the next day though, our project was gone, washable paint and all, and all we had to do was put away the paint markers and test tubes. I love easy clean-up!

The long shot from inside the house is great. You can see our snowy fun and the contrast of our snowless yard.

With a little creativity a snow day can still be colorful.

<3 Pedigreed Housewife

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