Snowman Math Craft for Kindergarten

Keeping students engaged in practicing addition can be challenging, especially during the winter months! Whether you are trying to keep student on track before the holidays or get back on track after winter break, a craft is a great tool to motivate students to practice addition. In this post, I’m going to share a fun snowman math craft for kindergarten addition practice this winter. 

Using Crafts for Math Practice

It’s no secret that I love to use themed crafts throughout the kindergarten daily routine. This includes math time! There are several reasons why it’s so helpful to use crafts to enhance math instruction and practice in your classroom:

• Increase Engagement – Mastering math concepts can take a lot of practice and repetition for young students. In order to keep kindergarteners motivated to keep practicing, it’s helpful to incorporate some fun, hands-on activities like crafts! This increased engagement is especially helpful when you’re trying to avoid the winter slump after the holiday break.

• Practice Multiple Skills – With so many skills to practice in kindergarten, it can be tricky to find time for everything! Adding crafts to math practice can help you make the most of the time you have with your students. They can practice math concepts while also building hand strength, improving coordination, and practicing their listening skills.

• Differentiate Math Practice – In a kindergarten classroom, it’s essential to differentiate math practice due to the wide range of experience and ability among the students. Crafts are a fun way to differentiate math instruction, since you can provide different templates for students based on what they need to practice. 

Now that I’ve shared some of the reasons why crafts can be such a helpful tool for math practice, I’m going to share one of my favorite winter math crafts with you!

Snowman Math Craft for Addition Practice

This snowman math craft is a low-prep activity that’s perfect for either the weeks leading up to winter break or for your January lesson plans after returning to school. It takes very little time to prep, and it’s very straightforward for students to assemble. This makes it a great option when you need to bring some additional engagement to math time without adding a bunch of prep or complication to your schedule.

Step 1: Gather Materials

The first step is to gather the materials needed for the craft. This low-prep activity doesn’t require a lot of time or materials! All you need is:

• Snowman templates copied onto white paper
• Construction paper in a color of your choice
• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers or Crayons

A great feature of this craft is that you can print off different templates based on your students’ current needs. There is a version of the craft for sums of 2-5 and another version for sums of 6-9.

Step 2: Color and Cut

Once you’re ready for students to begin the craft, you can distribute one set of snowman pieces to each student. They can add color to each of the snowmen by coloring the hat bands and carrot noses.

After all of the snowman pieces have been colored, students can cut out the pieces for this craft. This is a great opportunity for students to practice their fine motor skills! Cutting out circles requires students to focus on scissor control with one hand and rotating the paper with the other.

Step 3: Attach Headers

The next step is for students to attach the headers for the addition sort. Students will glue each snowman head near the top of the construction paper, leaving enough space below them to stack the snowballs. It’s very helpful to have the headers glued down before you begin the sorting process! Students won’t be able to jostle them around and forget which column is which if they get mixed up.

Step 4: Sort

Once students have their sorting mats all set up, it’s time to get to work! Students will choose a snowball from their stack and solve the addition problem printed on it. Once they have figured out the sum, they will place the snowball under the correct snowman. 

I always suggest that students wait to glue them down until they’ve sorted all of the snowballs. Students might discover that one of their snowmen is too tall to fit on the paper! This is their cue to check their work again to make sure all of their snowballs are in the correct spot.

Step 5: Build

After making sure that their snowballs have been sorted correctly, it’s time for students to build their snowmen. They can put glue on the backside of each snowball and attach them to the construction paper. 

The final product is a page full of snowmen that looks great on display in your classroom! You can use these crafts to create a winter bulletin board in the classroom or hallway. You can also have students use an accordion fold to help the snowmen stand up on their own. Either way, students are always so excited to see their work on display!

You could also make a copy of this snowman craft, laminate the mat as well as the snowballs, then add it to your math centers.  It would also be great as a small group warm up! There really are many different ways that you can incorporate this activity into your lesson plans!

Printable Snowman Addition Craft

Would you like to complete this craft with your students? I’ve put together a template that will save you a lot of prep time! It includes two different print-and-go snowmen templates, allowing you to easily differentiate instruction based on the needs of your students.

You can find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or in my TPT store if you’d like to take a closer look.

Save This Snowman Math Craft for Kindergarten

Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite board of kindergarten classroom ideas on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this math craft when you’re working on your lesson planning this winter.

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