These Snowflake Bentley activities are not your ordinary worksheets. This is a picture book challenge!

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin tells the story of Wilson A. Bentley, a photographer who is known for his detailed and beautiful photographs of snowflakes.

Wilson Bentley devoted his life to studying and photographing snowflakes, but it was difficult to get people to take his work seriously.

He was a determined and dedicated scientist who was able to overcome these obstacles and make a significant contribution to the field of snowflake photography.

Snowflake Bentley is a heartwarming and inspiring story about the power of curiosity and persistence and is sure to spark interest in those who are interested in science and nature.

snowflake Bentley vocabulary

I made vocabulary cards for eight tier 2 words. Each card has the vocabulary word, a kid-friendly definition, an example sentence, and a photo representing the word. These can be printed or projected from the PDF. There is also a narrated video presentation.

snowflake Bentley activities

I call these activities “picture book challenges.” The goal is for students to solve the challenges (activities), discover mystery words, and crack a final code word. Why? To discover the answer to a joke! Why are winter days great? These activities for Snowflake Bentley will have your kiddos feeling like detectives as they discover the mystery words. They will actually want to complete their work because it feels like a game! Use the digital or the printable version. The digital version is ready to assign in Google and Seesaw.

Let’s take a look at these Snowflake Bentley reading activities.

The first challenge is a vocabulary puzzle. Students match the word to its definition. The pieces make a picture if everything is correct.

Understanding characters is an important part of comprehension. This book lends itself well to talking about Wilson Bentley’s character traits. He didn’t give up on his dream of photographing a snowflake. Her persisted until he was successful.

For challenge #3, students read a nonfiction passage about snowflakes and answer some questions.

Challenge #4 is a timeline of events. After students have put the events in order, they use the secret code to decipher the mystery word.

Students will identify simple and compound sentences for challenge #5. The printable version is a color-by-code activity. The digital version is a sorting activity.

The last challenge is answering questions about the story. The digital version of this one is a Google Form.

There is a recording sheet for both the printable and the digital versions. Students use the mystery words to crack a final code word. If they get it right, you can give them a coloring sheet that has the answer to the joke. Mission accomplished!

❄️Of course, you can’t read this book without making paper snowflakes! I love this simple tutorial.

You can find all these fun activities in my Snowflake Bentley activities packet on TpT.