down her pancakes Then she messaged her neighborhood friends She met her friends in the backyard Everyone wore their snow pants and winter boots Maya gathered snow in a ball and rolled it around Both of her friends did the same Maya’s snowball got bigger with each roll The snow stuck together Soon the ball was up to her knees Maya and her friends stacked the snowballs on top of each other The biggest one was on the bottom The smaller ones balanced on top of it They found sticks for arms Maya grabbed a carrot for its nose Rocks made perfect eyes The snowman was finished Then Maya’s brother came outside He threw a snowball at Maya’s back and shouted Snowball fight Maya’s snow day was off to a perfect start WHAT IS SNOW Many kids who live in places where it snows look forward to snow days People may not think of snow 6
Kids can decorate snow people in many ways days as opportunities to learn But there’s a lot of science behind playing in the snow Knowing some of that science can make snow even more fun Snow is a form of precipitation Precipitation is water in different forms that falls from the sky 7
Snow comes from water vapor which is the gas form of water The water vapor collects on tiny pieces of SNOW DAYS AROUND THE UNITED STATES Some states get more snow than others Cold states such as Minnesota and Massachusetts get more snow than warm states such as Florida and Texas But school districts in warm states might cancel school for snow more often than those in cold states That is because warm states may not be prepared for snow They don’t have snowplows or salt for icy roads However cold states can get dangerously cold School districts may cancel school if it’s too cold for kids to get to school safely 8 sand or dust in the atmosphere It forms clouds Cloud particles are either liquid drops or tiny ice crystals The temperature in the atmosphere affects which form cloud particles take If it’s below 32 degrees Fahrenheit 0 C snow can form This process starts when more water vapor molecules attach to the cloud particles Water molecules in the form of ice stick together in the shape
Snow is frozen water that falls from the sky of a hexagon This is a shape with six sides A snowflake starts as a hexagonal ice crystal More water vapor molecules connect to the crystal They often attach to each of the six sides The crystal grows The six corners of the hexagon form the arms of the crystal Each of the arms gets longer Crystals run into each other in the clouds They can stick together As the crystals grow and stick together they become snowflakes NO TWO ARE ALIKE No two snowflakes are exactly the same Snowflakes are made up of trillions of water molecules The molecules 9
