Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 207
Snowflakes
Hello Everyone
At this time of year lots of children are just wishing for snow so that they can go out and play in it. Bill and Bob certainly do. Do you?
And this week they got lucky, because it snowed in Rocky Bay!
ln some countries children never see snow. Even the adults have never seen snow. They don’t know what it is like.
ln the middle of Europe this winter, some people have had too much snow! ln North America this week, people have had a lot of snow and bitterly cold temperatures too. Even the polar bears in the zoo had to go indoors it was so cold!
lf you have never experienced snow, let me tell you what it is like – it isn’t too unlike the ice crystals that you might find forming in a freezer but sometimes it can be a bit softer – like powder.
Snowflakes melt when you touch them with warm fingers.
lf it snows in the night, you will wake up to find road noise silenced – the whole world seems quieter. Until the snow turns to slush on the road and then you can hear the traffic again.
Your ceiling seems a brighter white than normal because of the reflection of light off the snow bounces upwards. You can see that it has snowed even before you get out of bed!
Some people, of course, live through the whole winter with snow outside their windows.
The Scots have 421 words to describe snow, it is such a part of life in some areas. This is eight times as many as lnuits apparently.
lf you know what feefle, skelf, sneesle, flindrikin means, please let me know.
Some animals live in the snow all the time, or at least a large part of the year. Polar bears, for example, are white to match in with their snowy home.
And plants too, can adapt to cope with freezing conditions.
Conifer trees, for example, do well in cold climates.
They have thick bark on their trunks, and flexible branches that bend under the weight of snow collecting on them. They have needle leaves with small surface area and a waxy covering to reduce water loss.
They even produce their own anti-freeze proteins to help protect their cells from any damage from ice crystals.
So… have you ever wondered how snowflakes are formed?
They only appear when the weather is very cold – below 2°C.
Snowflakes form when the temp gets to close to zero degrees.
Miss Pringle was explaining to her class how snowflakes were made this week. Bill and Bob were telling me about it all.
This is how she explained the science.
Tiny ice crystals form in stratus clouds. They collide and then stick together to form snowflakes. The flakes often form around a speck of grit or sand or pollen particle. When the ice crystals have something to grip onto, they become flakes that can become heavy enough to fall to the ground.
When the cold air is just above zero degrees, the snowflakes will melt around the edges and clump together. These big, heavy flakes are called wet snow and it is this kind of snow that is good for making snowmen.
But when the air is dry, the snow is much more powdery. The flakes don’t stick together and this type of snow is good for winter sports like skiing and snowboarding.
When it is windy, we get blizzards and drifts. Dry snow is blown more easily into drifts than wet snow.
The size and shape of a snowflake is determined by how many ice crystals group together and this depends on air temperature.
You may already know that a snowflake has six sides and that no two snowflakes are the same. They can be prisms, hexagonal plates or stars.
The flakes are in fact clear, but appear to be white as they fall through the sky and fall onto the ground.
At very low temperatures, flakes can be small and their structure will be quite simple, but at higher temperatures the flakes can be made up of many ice crystals forming more complex star shapes.
There are three types of shapes. A hexagon is called a thin plate, a hexagon with knobs at the corners is called a sector plate and a beautiful one that branches out is called a dendrite snowflake – this means tree-like.
Snow is usually a white or bluish-white colour. But in March 2018, skiers in Russia, Romania, Ukraine and Bulgaria were very surprised to see orange snow on their ski slopes.
Sand whipped up by a sandstorm in the Sahara Desert rose into the atmosphere and collided with winds carrying snow storms from Siberia in Eastern Russia.
The result was orange snow which fell onto the mountains of Eastern Europe.
There were orange, sand-laden skies as far south as the Mediterranean island of Crete.
lf the temperature is above 2°C the snowflakes melt and fall as sleet. Sleet is pellets of ice. They are snow flakes that melt into balls of water and then refreeze as they fall through subfreezing air.
Hail stones are even bigger ice pellets. They form in cumulus nimbus clouds and when they become too heavy to be supported by the cloud, fall to the ground. They can be up to 15cm across!
Large hail stones can put dents in cars and cause a lot of damage.
So will it snow again in Rocky Bay soon?
Who knows!
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
lf you like my blog, please support it by telling all your friends and followers about it.
Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: What do you get if you cross a tiger with a snowman?
Bill: l don’t know. What do you get if you cross a tiger with a snowman?
Bob: Frostbite!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Stratus clouds are low grey clouds that cover the sky like a blanket
Sometimes snow clouds have a yellow tinge to them
Cumulus nimbus cloud
Snow makes landscapes magical
Dendrite snowflake
The name means ‘tree-like’ – these snowflakes form in temperatures of -20 to -25 degrees Celcius in a moist atmosphere
Thin plate
Plates are formed when there is not enough moisture in the air to form branches
Sector plate
Similar to a thin plate, a sector plate snowflake forms a hexagonal structure often with a star-like shape in the centre
and it also has some branches
Snowflakes with clearly defined branches
Wispy snowflakes
Fresh snow on branches
A low winter sun striking light across snow
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Rocky Bay is such a lovely place to live that it is nice to go for a walk at any time of year.
In the winter, whether it is snowing or not, the children and I wear wellington boots to go walking because the lanes can get very muddy.
We sometimes walk over the deserted campsite and then the golf course which is behind the Sandy Cove sand dunes.
To make it more interesting, I sometimes set up a nature hunt for the children to do.
We have a list of things to look for and we see who it the first to spot something on the list.
Some things are easier to find than others.
A squirrel
Snowdrops can flower in the snow
The list is never very long because we don’t want to carry a lot of papers or note books with us.
This time of year it will look something like this:-
A spring flower
A catkin
A fungus
A rabbit
A blackbird
A robin
A deer
A crow
A squirrel
The person who sees the most things – is very clever.
A black bird
Please remember to feed the birds when the weather gets really bad
They will be very grateful
*********************
TO ADVERTISE ON THIS BLOG
PLEASE CONTACT:
christina.sinclair.ads@aol.co.uk
*********************
Quick Quiz
Un-jumble these letters to find things you could find on a snowy day…
- dels
- wosnnam
- legsed
- woonrasb
- eci stekas
- blosnawl ghifts
- boogtang
BLOW MY FOGHORN!!!
PLUS
Salty Sam fans can join in with their comments and share them with children all over the world. You will need permission if you are not an adult.
Enter your e-mail address to subscribe to my blog and receive new Salty Sam Blog Posts for free by e-mail every week. Your address will be kept private and will not be shared with any third party.
Sign me up at the side bar
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE SOME LEG WARMERS
These legwarmers can be worn on their own or over your socks.
If you are wearing wellingtons, you can pull them over socks and then push them up your legs so that they scrunch up under your knees. This extra bulk around your leg should help to stop your wellingtons rubbing on your leg and also help stop lumps of snow flicking into your boots as you walk.
It is horrible when they melt and make your feet wet inside your boots, isn’t it?
Measure around your leg under your knee to see which size of legwarmer you will need – remember that they will stretch a bit.
LEGWARMERS (KNIT TWO)
LARGE CHILD – LEGWARMER MEASURES 21CM AROUND THE TOP
Using 3¾mm knitting needles and green dk yarn cast on 50 stitches
Knit 3 (p2, k2) to last 3 stitches, p3
Repeat this last row 9 times (10 rows of rib)
Change to 4mm knitting needles
Increase 1 stitch at the beginning of the next row
Knit 2, purl 1 (k1, p1) repeat the last 2 stitches to the end of the row
S1 (k1, p1) repeat the last 2 stitches to the end of the row
Repeat this last row 98 times until you have 30cm/12 inches of patterned knitting (100 rows moss stitch)
Increase 2 stitches at the beginning of the next row
Knit 3, purl 2 (k2, p2) repeat the last 4 stitches to the end of the row
Increase 1 stitch at the beginning of the next row
Knit 3 (p2, k2) to last 3 stitches, purl 3 (54 stitches)
Knit 3 (p2, k2) rep to last 3 stitches, purl 3
Repeat the last row 9 times (12 rows of rib)
Cast off ribwise
Sew up the back seam with wrong sides together
LEGWARMERS (KNIT TWO)
SMALL CHILD – LEGWARMER MEASURES 16CM AROUND THE TOP
Using 3¾mm knitting needles and green dk yarn cast on 38 stitches
Knit 3 (p2, k2) to last 3 stitches, p3
Repeat this last row 9 times (10 rows of rib)
Change to 4mm knitting needles
Increase 1 stitch at the beginning of the next row
Knit 2, purl 1 (k1, p1) repeat the last 2 stitches to the end of the row
S1 (k1, p1) repeat the last 2 stitches to the end of the row
Repeat this last row 78 times until you have 23cm/9 inches of patterned knitting (80 rows moss stitch)
Increase 2 stitches at the beginning of the next row
Knit 3, purl 2 (k2, p2) repeat the last 4 stitches to the end of the row
Increase 1 stitch at the beginning of the next row
Knit 3 (p2, k2) to last 3 stitches, purl 3 (42 stitches)
Knit 3 (p2, k2) rep to last 3 stitches, purl 3
Repeat the last row 9 times (12 rows of rib)
Cast off ribwise
Sew up the back seam with wrong sides together
If you are a knitting newbie and you think that knitting moss stitch will be too difficult for you, you can make the legwarmers using garter stitch or stocking stitch but you will have to go by the measurements of 30cm or 23cm rather than the number of stitches noted in the pattern.
Knit an even number of rows.
You could make the legwarmers longer of course if you have long legs. Knit 120 rows of moss stitch if you are knitting them for a teenager.
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- Sled – dels
- Snowman – wosnnam
- Sledge – legsed
- Snowboard – woonrasb
- lce skates – eci stekas
- Snowball fights – blosnawl ghifts
- Toboggan – boogtang
