Wilson Bentley grew up on a Vermont farm and spent more than 40 years photographing snowflakes. On January 15, 1885, at 19, he took the first photograph of a single snowflake, and he went on to photograph more than 5,000. His story joins history and science: a patient young man, a camera on a microscope, and the six-sided ice crystals he found in the snow.
Seven pages. Pages 1 and 2 tell Bentley's early life and how he took the first snowflake photograph, page 3 explains how a snowflake grows its six arms, and page 4 his life's work and his book of 1931. Each text has questions to circle and one to answer in writing. Page 5 is a timeline drawn to scale: students read each year off the line, then work out the years between events. Page 6 matches six words to their meanings, and page 7 has two journal prompts.
Pair it with Jacqueline Briggs Martin's picture book Snowflake Bentley. On a snowy day, catch snowflakes on black paper, as Bentley did, and look at them with magnifying glasses, then write about them on page 7. Page 3 goes well with a snowflake symmetry lesson.
Read a page together and look at photographs of snowflakes. If it snows, catch a few on a dark mitten and count their arms.
The true story of Wilson Bentley, the Vermont farmer who took the first photograph of a single snowflake in 1885, and the science of how a snowflake grows. Students answer questions, read a timeline, match words to their meanings and write like scientists.
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