Ten years ago, when Freshman Principal Amy Sturges was a math teacher, she would put up a list of pre-snow day rituals at the front of her classroom. The day before there was projected snow, she would tell students their homework was to try one of the rituals.
“It was kind of more of a little joke than anything else, but it was fun,” Sturges said.
Sturges shared a room with another teacher and they both worked to put together a list of fun snow day rituals, including flushing ice down the toilet, putting a spoon under your pillow or putting a white crayon in the freezer.
Superstitions like these are practiced around the world when people want a lot of snow the next day.
“I personally didn’t do them, but we had all these [rituals]. We just started adding to the list,” Sturges said.
Sturges said that these lists were a lot of fun for both her and her students.
“Most of the time, the students would be like ‘oh that’s fun, is that really our homework?’,” Sturges said. “I’d be like ‘if you want a snow day tomorrow it is’.”
Kate Lorenz, junior, said that whenever she wants a snow day, she wears her pajama pants inside out. Lorenz loves doing these kinds of rituals and said she thinks they work
“They worked the four times we had a snow day,” Lorenz said.
Lorenz said these kinds of superstitions add to the fun of snow days, and that she’s been doing them for a long time.
“I think I got it from my dad,” Lorenz said.
Sai Karthik, sophomore, has a snow day ritual of using the online website, Snow Day Calculator, which allows users to see the probability of a snow day.
Every time snow is projected for the next day, no matter the precipitation rate, he goes on the website, and checks what the rate is.
“It’s a good way to see if there’s going to be a snow day overall,” Karthik said.
Karthik said he thinks this website is reliable because it often correctly predicts snow days with minimal mistakes and that it adds a fun perspective to snow days.
“It really gives you an accurate result,” Karthik said. “It’s really easy to use, very accessible, and it’s also free.”
