Tu B'Shevat DIY Snowy Tree Sensory Exploration Activity

I thought playing with a Tu B’Shevat DIY Snowy Tree Sensory Exploration Activity to continue learning about Tu B’Shevat and enjoy feeling something as close to snow as we can get right now would be a fun and engaging post-school activity and it was!

What You’ll Need

baking soda
hair conditioner
leaves

Putting It Together

Combine 3 cups baking soda to 1-ish cup hair conditioner to make the DIY snow. It should clump together when you squeeze it but should not be too moist.
Print information about deciduous and evergreen trees (optional).
Collect leaves from deciduous and evergreen trees.
Place snow and leaves in your sensory bin and invite the kids to explore the DIY snow and leaves!
I also made a couple trees from twisted pipe cleaners and invited the kids to choose whether they would be deciduous or evergreen. For the evergreen we carefully added tissue paper squares to the branches and for the deciduous my daughter sprinkled the tissue paper leaves around the base of the tree. Love this creativity!

F️inished & Loving It!

DIY snow is so easy and fun! It can mold and feels cold to the touch. It’s really a fun sensory bin filler. We don’t get real snow here so I thought the kids would love exploring a pretend attempt. It would also be a helpful background for our main learning theme for today’s activity, learning about evergreen and deciduous trees. Even though it doesn’t snow here snow definitely represents winter so was a helpful visual as we discussed how trees changed with the seasons.

I brought in some leaves from our own trees so we could see, touch and even smell these different types of trees’ leaves firsthand. I think it’s so important to explore by touch as much as you safely can!

My oldest read one of our favorite PJ Library books, Sadie’s Snowy Tu B’Shevat, and we tried making their snow tree like in the book. It’s always fun to act out scenes from our favorite books!

My preschooler did not like the way the DIY snow felt at first. It is cold! He would only play by scooping the snow with cups. But as I stepped back and let him explore slowly he shifted and began returning to touch the snow. Pretty soon he was all hands in! I love how waiting with an invitation to play can often result in new and brave sensory experiences.

As for the baby, Tu B’Shevat DIY Snowy Tree Sensory Exploration Activity is definitely NOT baby safe since you don’t want the snow in baby’s eyes or mouth. I put some snow and leaves in a ziplock taped to the floor & let baby explore that way!