Make Snowflakes and Learn Math!

Published January 2, 2019 | By Ms. K

What a great way to sneak math into a fun winter activity! Have students figure out how many degrees will have to be in each angle if a hexagon shape is cut into a snowflake. Well. 60 degrees of course because 60×6 angles would make 360 degrees. You can also discuss symmetry after they are cut out to see if the snowflakes truly did turn out symmetrically.

I had students cut these out for a fun enrichment activity. First of all, I read a portion of this book to them since it is about the science behind snowflakes. Did you know snow is NOT MADE by freezing raindrops? Me neither. It is made by frozen water droplets smaller than the tip of your hair. It takes over 100.000 water droplets to make one snowflake. This information and more are included in this unique book which gives the science behind snowflakes.

After I read students a portion of this book, we made snowflakes. I will show you below. The more you do it the better you get!

Step 1: Get a pair of scissors and a sheet of 8.5 x 11 computer printer paper.

Step 2. Fold the paper in half “hamburger style” or the fat way.

Step 3. Fold the paper in half again. Make sure the open corners are facing you. If they are not facing you then your snowflake will be cut in half unintentionally, and you will be left wondering why this happened.

Step 4: Fold the top corner down until it is slightly over the bottom of the rectangle above. I have not changed the orientation of the paper to accomplish this. The open corner are still in the same location as above

Step 5: Finally fold the bottom triangle over the other triangle in a waffle cone type of configuration–(that’s what the kids called it)

Step 6. Slide the end of the “waffle cone” off of the rest of the figure. and you will be left with the bottom of the “waffle cone” which is a triangle.