Blizzard of ’22 Brings “Snow” Much Fun for Lincoln Avenue Second Graders

January 31, 2022

Second Grade students in Mrs. Kristin Gennari’s class were given an opportune descriptive-writing activity, thanks to the post-blizzard snow piles on Lincoln Avenue school grounds. Mrs. Gennari thought it would be fun for the children to “bring the outdoors in.” She and her students “collected pans of snow to build mini snowmen. After building and observing their snowmen, they wrote descriptive paragraphs to help create a vivid and specific picture in the readers' minds.”

As the class discussed what adjectives to use for their snowmen, second grader Peyton noted, “It’s so much easier to write using adjectives when you can see them right in front of you.”   

Mrs. Gennari added that her class had enjoyed their Read-Aloud selection: Snowmen at Night.  “So in addition to using adjectives, some children used their imaginations to predict what their snowmen might do at night.”  

“My snowman likes to play and go on adventures at night,” Alexa said.

“The students knew that they had to work quickly,” Mrs. Gennari explained, “as we discussed bringing the snowmen indoors would lead to eventual melting.  We also discussed the temperature in which it would need to be to keep them intact (32 degrees).   We observed them throughout the morning and discovered that as predicted, the more snow that was used (the bigger the snowman), the longer it took to melt.”

John summed it up beautifully, “This is kind of like Frosty, when he melts at the end.  But don’t be sad, he’ll come back again one day.”

It was obvious by the creativity in the snow sculptures and the subsequent writing assignment that—to quote Mrs. Gennari—her “class had ‘snow’ much fun!”