Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha. Welcome back to Top Words. Today, we're going to talk about 10 snow activity words. So let's go!
1. sledding
The first word is "sledding." Sledding is a popular snow activity so a sled is required to do this. So a sled is like a smallish plastic toy that kids usually can sit in. So to go sledding, there's usually a snowy hill so kids go up the hill with the sled and then put the sled down, sit on the sled and slide down the hill or sled down the hill. So this activity of going up the hill and coming down the hill is called sledding. It's a lot of fun, okay.
In a sentence - Have you ever tried sledding?
2. skiing
The next word is "skiing." So skiing takes the same idea as sledding; however, the equipment is just different. So skis, there are two pieces, two essentially long sticks we attach to our feet and then we take a chairlift usually so we take a ride up a mountain and get to the top of the mountain, attach the skis to our feet and go down the mountain. So there's no sitting down hopefully here, just riding on the skis, two pieces attached to our feet down the mountain.
In a sentence - Let's go skiing this weekend.
Okay.
3. snowboarding
The next word is "snowboarding," snowboarding. So again, same idea, go to the top of a snowy hill and come down, but again, the equipment is different. So skis, as we talked about, there's one piece of equipment attached to each foot. Snowboarding; however, has just one piece of equipment that is attached to both feet. It's a board like a skateboard really. So again, we take it to the top of the hill, attach it and slide down, snowboard down the mountain. We can use snowboard and ski as verbs as well.
In a sentence - I haven't been snowboarding since high school.
That's true.
4. snowball fight
The next expression is "snowball fight." A snowball fight is a very popular thing for kids and adults to do. So a snowball is just a ball made from fresh snow and a fight is everybody throws snowballs at each other. So snowball fights can be very dangerous if you tightly pack the snowballs. It's generally nice to pack the snowballs lightly. By pack, I mean like to crush them lightly. If you make them very, very tight, you can really hurt somebody when you throw it at them, but a snowball fight is generally like a fun game that kids and adults can play together.
In a sentence - We should organize a big snowball fight.
5. Igloo.
The next word is "igloo," igloo. So igloo is actually a word that comes from the Inuits I believe which refers to houses or refers to buildings made from snow and ice. But building small houses which we can also perhaps call igloos in some way can also be a fun activity for kids and families to do on snowy day. So making kind of...it's not really a house necessarily, but it's just making a small structure or something small from snow that children can go inside and play in. It's just kind of a different experience, an interesting new space for kids to explore. So we can say making an igloo or building an igloo is a popular snow activity.
In another sentence - I want to try making an igloo someday.
6. snowshoeing
The next expression is "snowshoeing," snowshoeing. So this is an interesting one. I've heard it's very difficult. I've never done it myself, but it's typically done in places where the snow is very light so you attach a special…it looks kind of like a tennis racket if you can imagine it. You attach this to each foot, a snowshoe, it's called a snowshoe and then you can walk across the snow even the very light snow. So if you don't wear snowshoes, you might fall through the snow, but wearing snowshoes allows you to walk across the very light snow so you can get kind of an interesting experience like hiking through the snow a little bit, but with special shoes that allow you to do that. So snowshoeing is a popular activity.
In a sentence - Snowshoeing is really good exercise.
7. tobogganing
The next word is "tobogganing." Tobogganing is very similar to sledding in that it's going down a hill in like something you can sit in. But a toboggan, it's like a long sled you can think of that. Also to my understanding, their are traditional toboggans made from wood as well that were very fast in the snow and that could go down mountains and hills very quickly. But tobogganing is something that people still do in snowy weather, but yeah, they can be very quick and very kind of dangerous if you don't know how to control them. A toboggan is used for tobogganing so toboggan is the equipment, the item used to go down the hill.
In a sentence - Tobogganing seems really fun.
8. snow angel
The next expression is "snow angel," a snow angel. This is a very simple, just like great thing to do at the end of a day when you've been playing in the snow. So a snow angel is you lay your body down in the ground and when your body is laying in the snow, you make this motion with your arms and you make the same motion with your feet and then someone helps you to stand up from that position. The shape that your body creates from this motion, it looks like an angel a little bit. So we call that a snow angel, making a snow angel. So that's kind of a fun thing to do at the end of the day when you're tired from playing in the snow.
In a sentence - My brother and I used to lay in the snow and make snow angels.
That's true, okay.
9. build a snowman
The next one is "snowman." A snowman or snow woman I guess is a very popular activity in the snow especially for kids. So the idea is you roll balls of snow together, usually two or three, I think you have to have minimum two so you roll a ball of snow up and then you roll a slightly smaller ball of snow and put it on top of the first ball and then maybe another slightly smaller one. Usually, there's like three and they make the lower part, the middle part and the head of a person and then if you've watched movies, sometimes, families use like a carrot for a nose or pieces of coal for eyes, maybe there's a hat on it. So it's a popular family activity to make a man or a woman or maybe sometimes a snow family from the snow in their yard. So this is a really, really fun exercise.
In a sentence - Do you want to build a snowman?
10. build a snow fort
The last expression is "build a snow fort," build a snow fort. So a fort means a fort literally. A fort is like a safe place for like military or for like fighters to stay, but in this case, children like to build snow forts like maybe for their snowball fights. So it's like a wall or it's like a base made from snow that kids can hide in or play in or use to guard them in snowball fights. So building a snow fort can be a lot of fun for kids.
In a sentence - Have you ever built a snow fort?
All right, so those are 10 snow activity words. I hope that that was interesting for you. Is there anything that you like to do or that you did when you were a kid in the snow in your country? These are a few things that are popular in the USA, but if there's something that's interesting or popular to do in the snow in your country, let us know in the comment section. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Top Words and I'll see you again soon. Bye-bye!

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