Finding fun things to do in the cold can be hard! Check out the fun winter themed activities we’ve been up to during this cold snap!
I hate winter. I know a lot of people say that, especially when they are in the thick of it, but I REALLY REALLY do. Even in the dead of summer, when the thermometer reaches up into the high 30s and people continually remark on the hot weather, my reply is always the same “at least it’s not snowing.”
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. negative about the weather in front of them, but man, it's hard. I also try to avoid going outside whenever the weather goes below 10 degrees. I can layer up us much as my body will allow and yet I'm still cold and miserable.
So, when the frigid temperatures arrive, my kids are encouraged to play outside on their own. However, this past week we had several days of temperatures that hit -35. These temperatures coupled with the end remnants of a cold, kept my kids indoors all week long.
Since the kids were sick, we didn’t even make it to our classes because I didn’t want to spread the bug, so they were definitely feeling the cabin fever.
Have you ever had to keep kids inside for about a week? If you’re not prepared, you’re going to have a bad time!
Since we were stuck inside, I jumped on Pinterest to pick out some fun winter themed activities!
Snow Sensory Sink
Just before our cold snap, we got hit with a major dumping of snow. Fun.
I definitely didn’t want to go out in all the yuck, so I brought it indoors! And the kids had an absolute blast!
Using a small shovel, I filled both kitchen sinks with snow and added a few drops of food colouring. Now, this can easily be done without the food colouring (which is actually a little nicer for clean up when your kids add toys to the mix), so do whatever works best for you!
Once the sinks were full of colourful snow, I gave the kids some kitchen utensils to dig around the snow with.
Of course it didn’t take long for some LOL Dolls and Pokemon to join in on the snow day fun, which added a whole other level of snow sensory play!
This is a great activity for days where it’s just too cold to go out.
Snow Melting Timer
What’s a snow day without a little Science?
As the kids played in the snow filled sinks, they were quite pleased to observe the snow melting. This lead to a great conversation about the 3 states of water.
Since they were so intrigued by the snow melting, I decided to grab a mason jar and fill it with fresh snow.
I then pulled out some sticky notes and wrote the time the jar came into the house with the bottom of the paper indicating the snow level.
Then at random integers throughout the next few hours, we observed the water level. At each observation, I wrote the time on a sticky note and drew a little arrow to indicate the snow level.
Not only was this simply fun to do, but it also let the kids observe how snow melts and gave them a sense of time duration.
Positional Words Worksheet
While the kids understand and use positional words in their everyday life appropriately, I wanted to teach it to them as an actual concept to help with their writing in the future.
So I printed off this great winter themed positional word worksheet from The Moffet Girls that directs children to decorate a winter landscape.
This worksheet was great not only for reinforcing positional words, but also for getting the kids to draw new objects that they likely wouldn’t have considered before.
Label The Snowman Worksheet
I don’t know about your kids, but mine absolutely love gluing things! Pulling out some glue sticks is a sure fire way to get them excited about just about any activity!
Naturally, they were pretty pumped when they saw the Label the Snowman worksheet from keepingmykiddobusy.com , since it had words to cut out and glue!
This worksheet is great for simple winter site words, and developing word recognition.
Want more winter activity sheets? Check out these 7 Christmas themed literacy and numeracy worksheets here:
