Activity time: 10 minutes

Materials for Activity

• White paper and scissors (including left-handed scissors), for all participants
• Color markers and/or color pencils to share

Preparation for Activity

• Practice snowflake-cutting to become comfortable teaching this craft.

Description of Activity

Gather participants at worktables. Ask what the group knows about snowflakes. Say:

No two snowflakes are exactly alike—just as no two people are exactly alike. We are each unique and now we will each make our own, unique paper snowflakes.

Distribute paper and scissors. Demonstrate making a paper snowflake:

1. Fold a sheet of white paper in quarters.

2. Trim the long ends so the folded paper makes a square.

3. Find the one corner of your folded sheet that has no open sides. This corner will be the center of your finished snowflake.

4. With scissors, cut shapes out of the folded sheet, in any design you like. Make sure you cut all the way through all four layers of the folded paper.

5. When you are done, unfold the paper and see your finished snowflake.

Invite the group to make snowflakes. As they finish, point out how each is unique. Then, ask:

• Can a snowflake change?

Affirm that as the temperature changes, a snowflake will naturally change. It will melt, or freeze; it will not look the same. Then ask:

• Do people change like snowflakes?

Say, in these words or your own:

We’re not going to change by melting into water or freezing into ice. But, we do change naturally, all the time. Changing is part of life. As we get older, we grow taller. We might start to like different foods from when we were little. We become someone who plays soccer, or swims, or does multiplication, because we are learning, growing, changing, inside and out.

Now invite everyone to look at their snowflake. Say:

A unique person is quite different from a unique snowflake. Snowflakes cannot make choices and decisions about how they will change, but people can. Sometimes—like Brigit changed the landowner—we can help another person change in important ways that make them stop hurting others. When someone changes inside, like the landowner, they act differently, too.

We can all change inside to treat people with caring and fairness.

Let’s each think of way we could change inside to act with more love for others.

Distribute markers/pencils. Invite everyone to draw or write on their snowflake a quality inside themselves they would like to grow that would make them act better toward others (e.g., love, respect, caring, patience, generosity, fairness, etc.).

Invite a few volunteers to share their thoughts. Conclude by inviting everyone to take home their snowflake, as a reminder of two miracles: We are each unique, and we can decide to change.

Ask for volunteers to clean up work areas.