Kindergartners are quite young and some struggle with their fine-motor skills such as holding an oil pastel and cutting with scissors. This snowman art project is a great practice for developing these skills. All kids came away feeling mighty proud of their work.
How to draw a snowman without using circles
Drawing circles can be a challenge for this age group but I didn’t want to resort to tracing plastic cups like I sometimes do, because this lesson is all about the drawing practice. Instead, I had another technique I wanted to share with my Kinders.
I talked about the construction of a snowman; turning a handful of snow turn into a heavy snow ball and topping with a hat. Using a black oil pastel, we drew a letter “u” for the head/face. On top of that, we added a hat. Instead of drawing circles, we focused on drawing curved lines.
As I walked around to check on the kids drawings, I realized how hard it was for so many to draw a snowman but it was very easy for them to “build” a clay snowman just a month prior. A testament to the benefits of clay, I’d say!
Adding color and glitter
After drawing our snowmen on blue or turquoise paper, the children got out their scissors and began cutting around the blacklines. It’s a bit tricky cutting around the stick arms so I suggested they give a lot of space. If an arm got snipped, I had tape on stand-by mode.
After the snowman are cut out, use some watered-down glue or Mod-Podge and brush over surface of the snowman. Shake white or iridescent glitter over surface before glue dries.
Painting a snowy background
Give each child a black piece of paper (or blue if you want a daytime look) and a tub of white tempera paint.
Here’s a trick: in order to cover the black paper with snow, don’t add any water to the white paint. If it remains nice and thick, the snow will look better. But, if you want to splatter snowflakes like we did, you’ll need to water down the paint so it can splatter well.
Another idea (and probably a good compromise) is to use Q-tips and the thick white paint for the snowflakes.
Didn’t they do well?
Kindergarten Snowmen
Want more lesson ideas for the holidays? Download this free lesson guide by clicking the yellow button below and I’ll send you my 5 Non-Religious Projects for the Holidays!
I just love everything you do. I can always count on a great lesson from DeepSpaceSparkle! Thank you!
Loved this activity! Thank you so much! We added cotton balls to the snow at the bottom and it gave it an excellent look.
Just had two snow days in a row, so my on going projects are all a day off! Going to do this with tomorrows Kinders and make it a one day lesson by having them draw one snowman large on 12″ x 18 ” blue and leave out the background. They will still love the drawing and the glitter! Thanks for the idea.. we are all feeling “snowy” right now so a glittery snowman will be perfect.
Thanks for the inspiration! We started this project today and focused on using letters. They were so excited to start!
“U” for the head
“O”s for the body
“Y or y” for twig arms
For the next letters we needed to turn the paper on the side. We connected two “L”‘s to make a rectangle for a scarf and used “C”s to make the curve of a Santa hat.
I’m excited to see them cut and colored!