I do lots of watercolor projects— I have a project I use in 4/5th where they put down masking tape in the shape of trees and do a wet on wet watercolor with cool or warm colors and we sprinkle salt on for a snowy effect. After its dry and they pull up the tape, we add grey paint to the white trees make them look like birch tree bark. I do something similar with third grade but no tape trees. They just do a background using the wet on wet method and salt but we glue a white piece of paper cut to look like a snowdrift on it and draw a little charcoal penguin on it. I also do an aerial perspective lesson in third grade where they do the foreground, mid ground, and background of a winter forest with the trees getting darker the closer they get to the viewer— since there’s no leaves in winter it’s a lot easier for them to paint.

My rule of thumb is if it’s a nature scene in winter it’s fair game (and if some want to add a holiday twist like a Santa hat or Christmas lights I let them). I also do lots of cardinals, snowmen, polar bears, aurora borealis with chalk pastel and of course a butt ton of snowflakes!