Whether or not you have snow and ice where you live, these winter-themed lessons are a fun way to mix up your January lesson prep. These winter activities provide practice of reading comprehension, writing, science, and thinking skills. The themes of snow, winter weather, penguins, and winter animals are perfect for cold winter days in January.
Download your free winter calendar lesson here.
Check out this list of Evan-Moor winter worksheets, printables, and projects from Teachers Pay Teachers and discover your next lesson:
The Polar Bear
Reading and vocabulary
Grade 1
This story for emerging readers is about polar bears. The unit includes a reproducible minibook with a story dictionary, plus four activity pages on recalling details, working with the “-ear” word family, adding “-ing” to words, and finishing a crossword puzzle.
Mr. Snowman
Reading
Grade 1
This simple read-and-understand story is about making a snowman. The unit includes a 4-page minibook with a dictionary, accompanied by four activity pages on sequencing the story, creating compound “snow” words, rhyming words with “snow,” and writing about a snowman on a sunny day.
It’s Snowing
Reading comprehension
Grade 2
This one-page read-and-understand nonfiction story is about how snowflakes are formed. The unit includes five reading skills activity pages on story details, sequencing, word meanings, the sounds of “er”/”or” and “ow,” and directions to make a paper snowflake.
A Coat for the Water Pipes
Physical science/matter
Grades 1–2
This Read & Understand Science unit for grades 1–2 investigates the concept “Water expands as it freezes” (and how a person puts on heavy coats for protection and warmth). The unit includes a minibook on the concept, plus three student activities on comprehension, word families (-ap), and showing what to wear.
Literature Pockets: Caldecott Winners Ezra Jack Keats’ “The Snowy Day”
Reading, writing, arts
Grades 1–3
This literature pocket provides information and activities about illustrator and author Ezra Jack Keats and his wining title, The Snowy Day. This unit includes a biography, bibliography, and bookmark, an original story describing snow, and an activity to make an accordion book on sequencing.
A Polar Habitat
Science
Grades 1–3
This unit from the ScienceWorks for Kids series provides information, directions for activities, experiments, and a minibook about life in the polar regions, based on the concept “A polar habitat is very cold.” The unit covers polar plants and animals and ice/icebergs.
Building a Snowman Writing Center
Hands-on thinking
Grades 1–3
This unit includes directions and forms for creating an activity center in which students think of various kinds of snowmen they could build and how to keep a snowman from melting
Pocket Book for When It’s Winter
Life science
Grades 1–3
This extensive unit provides detailed directions, patterns, and ideas through which students create a “pocket book” about what happens when the season is winter (hibernation, migration, animals that change color, and what humans do to stay warm) that includes fact sheets, writing ideas, bookmaking and art projects, and more.
Theme Pockets: Penguins
Hands-on penguin projects
Grades 1–3
Three pocket projects help your students learn about these unusual birds of the Southern Hemisphere while they practice basic skills. Pocket 1: Penguins Minibook; Penguins Picture Cards and Report Form; How Tall Is a Penguin? Pocket 2: Where Do Penguins Live?; Where the Penguins Live Flap Book. Pocket 3: Survival; Where Penguins Lay Their Eggs; Emperor Penguin Life Cycle Wheel.
When It’s Winter
Pocket Book
Grades 1–3
Delightful pocket projects about how different animals prepare for winter!
Four pocket projects help your students learn about hibernation, changing colors, migration, and other ways animals and people adapt to harsh weather climates. Pocket 1: Some Animals Hibernate in Winter; Fascinating Hibernation Facts; Who’s Hibernating Here?; My Long Winter’s Nap. Pocket 2: Some Animals Change Color in Winter; Arctic Animals Flip Book; Wintering Over in Our Classroom. Pocket 3: The Monarch Butterfly Migrates to Warmer Places; The California Gray Whale Migrates to Warmer Waters; Snow Geese Fly South for the Winter. Pocket 4: How We Stay Warm Shape Book; Winter Clothing Graph; Color Me Warm.
Water, Weather, and Winter
Reading Paired Text
Grade 3
This paired text science unit focuses on helping students answer this Big Question: How does water affect our lives? This unit contains two lessons and a unit assessment. Each lesson includes teacher support pages, a dictionary, a reading selection, and a variety of written and oral activities, including reading comprehension, close reading, vocabulary, and text-based writing activities. The reading selections in this unit are: Water All Around Us (Level M) and Panika’s Favorite Season (Level O). An answer key is also included.
Animals in Winter
Nonfiction reading comprehension
Grade 3
A two-page nonfiction story about what animals do in the winter, plus six pages on comprehension (making comparisons, sequencing), vocabulary (word meanings), phonics (long vowels), and structural analysis (suffixes, comparative and superlative forms).
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.