Students will love creating their own winter scenes and stories.

First, they make a winter scene in a shoebox. Then, they can use the free templates (under “To Create a Book”) for a story web, draft, and finished book explaining their winter scene.

Materials:

To Create the Book

• Winter book template
• Story web and draft
• Writing process
• Parts of a story
• Pencil

To Create the Shoebox Winter Scene

• Shoe box
• Small mirror (or color paper blue or silver. This is the ice.)
• Cotton balls
• Glue
• Paper
• Scissors
• Colored pencils or crayons
• Lots of imagination!

Instructions:

1. Scenery

Students create a winter scene inside a shoe box. Glue the glass (ice) to the bottom of the box. Then, glue cotton balls all around the edges of the glass. (If you don’t have a mirror, color some paper light blue.) Completely cover the bottom of the shoe box with cotton balls leaving the ice visible.

Draw any buildings, houses or mountain scenery you would like on the back of the shoe box using crayons or colored pencils. You could even use glitter for extra sparkle.

2. Characters

Draw small people and animals onto a piece of paper. Draw a line around the people or animals. Use this line as a guide to cut out your character after you draw a 1/4 inch box underneath each character. Fold this little box back and glue it to the bottom of the box to keep your character in place. If it needs extra help standing up, poke a toothpick behind the character and through the cotton balls.

Character Suggestions:

• Children ice skating on the frozen pond.
• A dog running in the snow.
• Children building a snowman.
• Children sledding.
• Children skiing.
• A snowman made of the cotton balls. Use paper, colored pencils, scissors and glue to make the eyes, nose, mouth, hat and buttons.

3. Story

Use this story web to brainstorm ideas.

Write a draft underneath the web.

Then, write the story in the book. Share it with friends as they look at your winter scene.

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