If you are looking for winter theme activity ideas for your kids, this fun snowman fine motor activity will fit the bill. The snowman is easy to craft from a plastic bottle. Kids enjoy filling the snowman with snow and attaching eyes, nose, mouth, and accessories. it’s perfect for you winter theme lesson plans and snowman theme lesson plans.
Are you looking for activities for your winter theme? I made this cute snowman fine motor activity with a plastic half & half bottle. Let me show you how I made it.
Snowman Body
Because I am a coffee addict I happen to have a bunch of plastic quart half & half bottles at home. The half & half bottles work really well for this snowman craft because their shape is perfect for a snowman body. The best thing about these particular bottles is that their mouth is slightly wider than the mouth on a typical water bottle. The wider mouth makes it easier to get small puff balls out of the bottles so that kids can fill the bottles over and over. To prep the bottles, I thoroughly cleaned them and cut the plastic label off of them.
Make a Hat from a Sock and Fruit Container
My kiddo was so excited to help me make a video tutorial to show you how to make the cute hat for the snowman. Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties with the video.
So…I’ll just tell you how I made it without a video. To make the hat I used a pair of fuzzy baby socks that I found at the dollar store. I tried to just roll the sock up and place it on top of the bottle, but it looked ridiculously small. I found that using an empty plastic fruit cup under the sock created a nice form for the hat. To assemble, I pulled a sock over a fruit container and rolled up the edge of the sock around the opening of the container. Then, I carefully added some hot glue around the edge of the container to hold the sock in place on the container. I topped the hat off with a little colored puff ball that I also hot glued in place.
Snowman’s Face
For my snowman’s face I used googly eyes and 5 small black buttons to make a mouth. I cut a triangle from a piece of craft foam to make his carrot nose. I applied some self-stick hook and loop tape to the back of each of the pieces. It might be fun to provide a variety of eyes and facial features for kids so that they can make different kinds of snowmen.
If the snowman’s facial features have hook and loop tape on them then the snowman’s face needs some hook and loop tape too. (Helpful Hint: When my scissors gets all gummed up after cutting self-adhesive hook and loop tape, I clean off the blades by wiping them with rubbing alcohol or lemon oil).
Now kids can attach the eyes, nose, and mouth parts to the snowman’s body. I also created a scarf from a big fluffy chenille stem that kids can wrap around his neck. If you don’t have chenille, a strip of colorful felt will work well as a scarf as well.
Every Snowman Needs Snow
When the parts are complete, kids can use them for the fun winter activity. The snowman is ready for some snow. I found that smallish white puffballs worked well. Kids can drop the puffballs into the bottle with their fingers or with a pair of tongs. To complete the snowman, kids can add the eyes, nose, mouth, scarf, and top him off with a hat. When they are done, they can shake out the snow to start again.
I hope that you and your kids enjoy this fun winter theme idea. To find additional snowman-themed activities for your kids, check out the following resources at my store:
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