You’ll be the coolest mom or dad on the block if you give this simple twist to outdoor snow play: give your kids permission to bring their toy cars outside to join the fun! Travis was hesitant to venture into the cold, so I headed out first with a shovel and made a road in the snow. Once he saw what I was up to, he couldn’t resist.

He was very into the process of making the road itself, and started to shovel his own route next to the one I had created before he even turned his attention to the cars. Let your civil engineers take over the road building, too, if they prefer!

We found that this game works best with bigger toy cars; little ones get bogged down in the snow.

The best vehicle was our big dump truck, which of course had the added benefit that we could load it with snow…

…zoom it to the dump, and then unload.

What’s your favorite novel way to play in the snow? Let us know in the comments!