The Met Office has issued a serious England-wide weather alert, with snow forecast for some parts of Britain over the weekend.

The UK is set for another bitterly cold night with temperatures possibly reaching -12C, say weather forecasters.

The Met Office has severe weather warnings in place until Sunday.

However snowy days aren't just for sitting in the house

Snow Ice Cream

Long ago people figured out the easiest way to make ice cream is to use snow. Find out how to make your own Snow Ice Cream with this fun winter activity.

What You'll Need:
Clean snow
Bowl
Sugar
Vanilla extract
Milk or cream

How to Make Snow Ice Cream
Scoop some freshly fallen snow into a big, chilled bowl. Make sure the snow you take is clean and white. Remember never eat yellow snow.

Nestle the bowl in the snow to keep it cold while you make snow ice cream. Add a little sugar, a few drops of vanilla extract, and some very cold milk or cream. Stir together and eat.

Experiment with different flavors of snow ice cream. Try adding some cinnamon or cocoa powder.

Where's the North Pole?

If you follow the steps of this snow activity, you'll find the answer by making your own handy homemade compass.

What You'll Need:
Pie pan
Water
Dishwashing liquid
Magnet
Needle
1/4-inch slice of cork

Fill a pie pan with water. Add a small amount of dishwashing liquid.

Now you'll need to magnetize a needle. To do this, use a bar magnet with the north end marked. Scrape the needle across the north end of the magnet, from the eye of the needle to its point. Do this about 15 times. It's important to scrape the needle in the same direction every time - don't rub it back and forth on the magnet.

Carefully poke the needle through a small piece of cork. Float the cork in the middle of the pie pan. Like magic, the needle will always point north.

If you walked far enough in that direction, you'd find yourself at the North Pole! That's because the Earth is like a giant magnet, with one end in the North Pole and the other end in the South Pole.