5 activities to celebrate winter with your class

Snowy winter days are a great excuse to review concepts such as the water cycle, states of matter, and unit conversion. One interesting activity to try with your class that covers all of these topics is collecting and measuring snowfall. Start by asking your students to place a container with a known volume outside (if you can use a graduated container, even better), and then have them retrieve it after a snowfall.
 

In the meantime, ask your students to guess how much snow they will collect, how much water there will be when it melts, the temperature of the snow, and so on. You can also ask them to justify their answers using the scientific method. In general, the water content of snow can be calculated using a 10:1 ratio. In other words, 1 cm of snow, once melted, is equivalent to about 1 mm of water.
 

To take this activity a step further, you could build a snow board with your class and measure the snow that accumulates on it with a ruler. For greater accuracy, consider taking multiple measurements and calculating the average.
 

In addition, you can repeat this activity with various types of snow. This will allow your students to observe how the water content of powdery blowing snow, for example, compares to that of, say, heavier sticky snow.
 

Alloprof has developed an interactive French vocabulary exercise that allows you to create custom review lists. By logging in to the Alloprof website (or creating an account if you have not already), you can input your own vocabulary lists into the exercise tool and save them under automatically generated codes. Students can simply enter a code on the tool’s home page from their computer, cellphone, or tablet to bring up a list and begin practising their spelling.
To get the ball rolling, we have prepared a winter-themed vocabulary list that your students can access using the code 7zpmJMaEhjnAiuCBpo4XNT. We guarantee their spelling skills will get a good warm-up!
 

What better way to get the brain going on a chilly day than by exploring proverbs? Every society has its proverbs and expressions. Studying them helps with not only understanding how they are used, but also improving one’s vocabulary and communication skills.
 

This stimulating activity focuses on Quebec proverbs and expressions. Start by asking your students if they know of any that have to do with wintertime or the cold, and then give them a few examples:

• Attache ta tuque avec de la broche,
• En avril, ne te découvre pas d’un fil,
• Qui laisse sa chaise l’hiver la perd,
• S’il neige, on pellettera,
• Fondre comme neige au soleil,
• Il tombe des peaux de lièvres,
• Avoir la guedille au nez,
• On ne voit ni ciel ni terre,
• etc.

Next, ask them what they think each proverb means and have them make fun drawings to illustrate them.

Did you know that Alloprof’s website includes a section on Nehlueun vocabulary (currently available in French only)? It features nearly 900 vocabulary words divided into 18 categories. Each word is accompanied by an audio pronunciation clip and, when available, an illustration to help with comprehension. Learning a bit of this Indigenous language could be a fun lead-in to a social sciences project (e.g., a project on Quebec geography or the history of Indigenous peoples in the province).
 

For a winter-themed activity, ask your students to find certain winter-related entries among our Nehlueun vocabulary lists. Then, have them make colourful illustrations for their top five.
 

Here is our suggested list of words and expressions for your students to find:

• Hiver
• Blanc
• Raquette
• Toboggan
• Mitaine
• Manteau
• Bas
• Foulard
• Mocassin traditionnel
• Botte d’hiver
• Aréna
• Patineur
• J’ai froid

Here in Quebec, winter simply would not be the same without snow! Indeed, we tend to use the word neiger (to snow) quite a lot this time of year. To help your students learn how this verb is conjugated in every tense, start by introducing them to Alloprof’s conjugation tool. They can then move on to our interactive conjugation exercise.