Build a Sensory Snowman with fake snow

My son is a big fan of Frozen and is constantly singing the songs. So much so that I’ve been researching gender-neutral gift ideas for Frozen fans and have been wanting to do a related craft for a while! Over the long holiday break, we watched the movie Frozen and then decided to make time for this DIY snow craft that has been on my to-do list for some time.

How to Build a Sensory Snowman

I have heard many different versions of this DIY fake snow activity. Of course, if you live where you get actual snow, you might not be as excited to make your own. But down here in Texas where we finally just now have the season Fall, we got a kick out of doing this activity.

Supplies:

Baking soda (bonus if you freeze it in advance for that cold sensory feeling)
White hair conditioner (so it won’t change the color of the snow)
Craft supplies (anything you want to use for the face, clothing, etc)
Random nature treasures if you want for arms, etc.
White vinegar
Eye droppers
Measuring cup
Mixing bowl
Cookie sheet for a mess-free workspace

Steps:

You will want nearly equal parts frozen (or just cold) baking soda and conditioner. I have seen this activity done in many varieties online but like always, you really have to try it yourself to find out how much of each ingredient you need. I’ve seen many DIY snow recipes that show very little conditioner to a large proportion of baking soda, but I found this to not work and had to keep adding more.

I started with 1 cup of very cold baking soda and gathered a bunch of those hotel bottles of conditioner. I kept adding more and more conditioner and mixing it in until the overall consistency of the baking soda was more clumpy and less powdery. You want it to be easy to shape and be able to play with rather than having it be snow dust.

Then I helped my preschooler make rounded snowballs to make the snowman and let him pile them up and pat them down. This honestly made the snowman a bit more of a squishy Jabba the Hutt than a snowman, but that’s a-OK! Then I gave him the craft supplies bin and helped pick items out to make the face and body.

We used googly eyes and sticks for face, nose, and arms. We used craft sticks for feet. A pipe cleaner created his scarf and some confetti and jewels made him a jacket. Also, my kiddo was nervous that this was going to be the mean snow beastie from Frozen, so we made him happy by using the silly GIANT blue lips you see. It was quite hilarious when we were done building it!

After we were done laughing at how silly this snowman turned out, the preschooler wanted to melt it. Sure! Out came the vinegar and we melted the little guy down.

This is a quick fun science experiment you can do at home. Yay for winter STEAM/STEM fun! The fizzy bubbles are caused by carbon dioxide, a gas that forms when the vinegar (an acid) reacts with the baking soda (a base).

You can see a quick boomerang of the melting fun below.