Category: Winter Projects

Indoor Snow Play

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Baby it’s cold outside! When the kids want to play out in the snow but the temperatures are hovering near zero, do the opposite: Bring the snow inside! If nothing else, the novelty of this idea is sure to delight any little ones feeling cabin fever.

First, we braved the cold for just a few minutes to shovel up snow, filling a few large plastic bins. Travis loves his child-sized shovel, and would happily have stayed outside longer if I let him.

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Inside, set down your snow on towels to contain any drips.

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Waterproof mittens are a definite plus…

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… although Travis decided he liked using his regular mittens best.

Now just have fun with the snow! Fist we made snowy roads for his cars to drive down.

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By far his favorite activity was stirring together a snow soup. I gave him little odds and ends from our craft bin, such as blue stones, buttons, and sparkly pom poms.

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You can’t have indoor snow play without adding some glitter.

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Finally, we made a little indoor snowman! The snow wasn’t the right texture for perfect snowman building, so two tiers was the best we could do. We decided he looked more like a Snowfrog, and put him outside on the patio where he won’t melt.

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Here’s wishing you and yours a happy and healthy 2018, hopefully with warmer weather to come soon!

Salt Painting Ice Sculptures

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Not only is this project visually stunning, but it’s a neat way to teach kids why they see salt on the sidewalks and roads in the wake of a snowstorm… bcause the salt helps the ice to melt faster! Bring the concept to life with this fun activity.

First, fill an empty milk container with water and freeze overnight. In the morning, cut away the box (make a slit with sharp scissors, and the rest will peel away) to reveal a huge ice cube.

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Travis was quite impressed – the biggest ice cube ever! Place in a baking tray to catch the mess you’re about to make.

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Next, sprinkle a healthy dose of salt over the top of the ice cube.

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Set out food coloring and invite your child to drip it all over the ice. You’ll soon see runnels of color and salt melting away at the ice block.

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The effect is quite stunning! Travis had fun mixing colors, and watching it all run down the sides.

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It was his idea to pull out a flashlight; lighting up the rivulets made them appear even cooler!

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Of course then we needed to add extra salt and more color a few times. We then left the ice block out all morning, and checked on its progress. I had to pour off the melted water a few times, and then we could watch new pools of colored water form.

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The craggy surface was fascinating for Travis!

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And it turns out we had perfect timing since we got another snowstorm today – and another chance to see salt out on the sidewalks and pavement.

 

 

Arctic Crate

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Last winter we received a Snow Crate through our Koala Crate subscription, so it seemed sort of redundant to receive an Arcitc Crate this time around; I worried the crafts inside might not be novel enough. Luckily the projects were quite different. So even if learning about the Arctic in particular and snow in general had some overlap, we had plenty to keep us entertained. 

As always, you can copy the ideas below with materials from a craft store. First though…

…it was tough to get going on the crafts because Travis loved the materials themselves when we popped open the box. Fluffy ribbon that would later be used to make a “snowball” first had to be incorporated into music and movement play.

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After that he decided it was “snow” and shoveled it up off our carpet. Koala Crate wins for sparking imagination with this one! 

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Once he was ready, we started by putting together the Polar Bear Dress-Up costume, and I was impressed by his focus. He decided all by himself where the felt stickers should go to be the pads and claws on the paws.

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Next he laced around a whole paw with the white string provided. I thought for sure he would tire of the task – polar bear paws are big! – but he insisted on finishing the whole paw himself. (I did lace up the second one for him).

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The headband ears were simple: attach white felt stickers with black felt dots in the middle to a white headband, and you have polar bear ears. Lots of roaring ensued once he had the ears and paws on!

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Next up was Snowball Toss, a craft that doubles as a sports game. We covered a Styrofoam ball with sticky Velcro stickers to make the “scratchy snowball.”

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To make the “fluffy snowball,” we wound white fluffy yarn (mentioned earlier!) around a bath loofah. Now it was time to test out games of catch!

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Travis was amazed when the scratchy snowball latched right onto a felt polar bear paw.

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The soft snowball took more dexterity. As you play, you can ask your little one questions about the differences between the two balls, and why one is easier to catch than the other.

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The final craft, Snowflake Stamps, was remarkably similar to a wrapping paper activity we enjoyed just before Christmas. Travis was super eager to see how the snowflake stamps worked, but he lost interest quickly.

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As a minor gripe, the ink pads were smaller than the snowflake stamps, which frustrated him and led to his disinterest. He decided it was more fun to stamp ink pad squares directly onto the paper.

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Still, we ended up with enough stamps to cover the provided blue paper, which can then be used to wrap gifts.

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Perfect for winter holidays or upcoming winter birthdays!

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In sum, I didn’t necessarily feel like Koala needed to send us a wintery themed crate just because it’s cold outside… but they did an admirable job of making this one quite different from last year’s Snow. 

 

 

Salt Dough Snowflakes

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Here’s a beautiful snow-themed project, perfect for Christmas tree ornaments or for hanging around the house as wintery decoration even once the holidays are over. We loved the idea of the craft, but had no snowflake cookie cutter at home. Read on for our improvised version!

To prepare the salt dough, mix together 1/2 cup salt…

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1/2 cup water…

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and 1 cup flour. Travis was a very happy mixer. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour.

Roll the dough to about 1/4-inch thick, then cut out snowflake shapes with a cookie cutter.

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As mentioned, we didn’t have the right cookie cutter… but I did have a snowflake-shaped pendant, that I thought we could press into the dough.

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After some trial and error…

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…we found it worked best to cut out squares of dough first and place them on a baking sheet, then to imprint the snowflake.

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Poke a small hole in one corner of each snowflake using a straw, then bake at 275 degrees F for 90 minutes, or until hard.

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They looked so pretty when they came out of the oven!

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As the final touch, your child can decorate with paints or markers. I had fun coloring in a few with Christmas-y colors. Travis was equally delighted to paint several of them, and although perhaps not as “pretty”, I loved his creativity as he worked.

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Thread a string through the hole in each one,. As mentioned, they make great ornaments (we’ll have to save ours for next year’s tree!) or even work as gift tags if you use a marker to write the name of the recipient on the reverse.

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Mitten Match: Alphabet Game

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Here’s a cute and seasonal alphabet match game to keep little mind’s sharp over winter break!

You’ll need 52 mitten shapes to play the game, labeled with all the letters in both upper and lower case. So yes there’s quite a bit of parental prep-work, but you can spread out the task over the course of an afternoon.

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First, I printed out a mitten template (just Google and dozens will pop up), and traced a pair of mittens onto paper for every letter. You can trace onto any paper you like; colored construction paper would be pretty, although white paper would work just fine. I have a pad of patterned paper which worked great because each letter pair could have its own distinct pattern. This served as a cue for finding matches if Travis was in doubt, later on.

Label each mitten pair with the capital and lower case of each letter. Cut out.

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Now it’s time to play with your mittens, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it!

You can set up a hide-and-seek around the house. If playing this version, choose just a few mitten pairs – 26 letters would require a lot of patience and good hiding spots.

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Travis balked a little at the learning aspect of the game, until we found ways to make it exciting. Before bed, I showed him an upper case letter, and he used a flashlight to pinpoint the matching lower case, for example.

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Even more fun, Travis loves loading up toy trucks and cars like they are dump trucks, and I encouraged him to load all the mittens – but only once he had an upper and lower case match.

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He was so thrilled that he went through all 26 pairs, proudly showing me each before it was loaded up into the truck.

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How else will you play with your mittens? Please share ideas in the comments!

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Missing-Mitten Puppets

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We loved this suggestion from our December issue of High Five magazine! What parent of small children doesn’t have an odd mitten or two lying around? Kids always seem to be losing just one of a pair. To prolong the fun, I also purchased a cheap three pack of gloves, so our imaginations could run wild with puppet making. Although mittens would have been ideal, gloves worked just as well for our new puppet friends.

First, we followed the two suggestions from High Five. An old yellow glove received orange thread as a mane, which Travis loved gluing to the fingertips.

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We added googly eyes and felt pieces for the nose and mouth. Black thread was perfect for little whiskers.

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Felt ears (in pink and blue), a blue felt nose, more googly eyes, and more black thread as whiskers turned an odd blue glove into a mouse. Squeak!

From there, I left Travis’s imagination take over. We had a very abstract elephant covered in orange thread and yellow felt, shown here in the foreground:

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He next asked to make a porcupine, so I got out “quills” from brown felt and Travis added a pom pom nose.

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Then he decided we needed a black cat, with pink felt ears and facial features. Travis insisted that the cat needed a sparkly pom pom, too.

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Then of course it’s time for a puppet show!

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What color mittens do you have on hand to turn into animals? Please share ideas in the comments!

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Cardboard Learning Tree

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This is a great activity that combines seasonal holiday crafting with a little learning. If you play your cards right, the kids won’t even know you’ve slipped in some education with their fun!

For the shape of your tree, you can either paint a large piece of cardboard (holiday gift delivery boxes, perhaps?) or poster board. We chose poster board because I knew it would be easier to cut out the tree. Either way, Travis was thrilled when I said I needed the entire thing painted green.

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We left the paint to dry overnight, and the next day I cut out the tree shape.

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Next we gathered supplies for the “ornaments.” Use holiday-themed cookie cutters or other shapes, and trace the outlines on colored construction paper.

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Don’t worry if your kids don’t trace perfectly, you can always neaten up the lines when cutting the shapes out later.

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The next step was even more fun: laminating the cards. Although this step is optional, it will definitely make your paper pieces last longer. Travis adores whenever he’s allowed to help laminate, so this was a big hit.

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I cut out the shapes, and set them aside.

We hung our tree on the wall and added a brown piece of construction paper as the trunk.

The final step was to add Velcro strips to our tree and ornaments. Place the soft side of the Velcro on the tree at random intervals, then attach one rough Velcro piece to each ornament. Travis loved this even before we added the learning element, hanging his ornaments and then changing their positions.

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There are so many games you can play from this point on! First, I numbered the ornaments one through twenty with a wipe-clean marker, for a number search game.

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A simple wipe with a paper towel and we could play alphabet games. One suggestion is to hide the letters in your child’s name, and have them pinpoint those on the tree.

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As an alternative, write the upper and lower case of a batch of letters, and have your child find the pairs.

In full honesty, Travis was way more into the mechanics of this game (taking on and off the ornaments, wiping them clean with paper towels), than he was with the learning games, but we’ll play again over the course of the next few weeks!

Making Snot!

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It’s that time of year – cold and flu season that is. Travis was recently upset by his stuffed up nose, so we decided to make snot a little less mysterious and miserable, and a little more fun.

To whip up your homemade snot, sprinkle three packets of vegan gelatin substitute (such as Simply Delish) into 1/2 cup warm water.

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Meanwhile, add 1/4 cup light corn syrup to a second bowl.

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Stir the gelatin with a fork to dissolve the lumps, then add to the corn syrup mixture. This should result in a string, snotty mixture, but Travis liked the look of the lumpy gelatin, which he decided was “boogies.” Hey, whatever makes snot seem fun!

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For extra ick factor, add a few drops of green food coloring, then go wild spooning and scooping through your snotty mixture.

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Travis was delighted at first, and soon became a bit of a mad scientist. He wondered what would happen if we added more corn syrup…

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…And then wanted to add more food coloring. As a result, our “snot” was soon pretty much just goop, but we still had fun with it!

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If you like, you can explain to your child that snot is simply a mix of protein, sugar, and water – nothing to be too upset about, when their little noses do inevitably get stuffed up.

Want more flu season fun games? Check out my past posts on how germs spread and blowing your nose!

Birch Tree Tape Resist Picture

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We haven’t done tape resist art in a long time, so it seemed like the right moment to return to an old idea in a new form. A cold winter blast has me thinking of lovely winter birch trees, always my favorite, and tape resist is the perfect way to create these white tree trunks.

First, create the outline of trunks and branches on white paper by covering with tape. Any masking tape or patterned washi tape will work fine – you’re going to remove it at the end. Travis was surprised when we made our trees blue to start (but shh, don’t spoil the surprise for your child yet!).

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Next we painted over the tape and the rest of the paper for a blue sky background. We used tempera paint, but you’ll get a more wintery, softer feel if you use watercolors.

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Let the paint dry, then it’s time to peel back the tape for the big surprise – white-trunked trees!

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Travis was so excited to see our birches, and helped sketch on little black lines in the bark.

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As the finishing touch, decorate your trees – we used buttons and little leaf cutouts.

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He told me the first picture was done, but then got more impish with the second, layering on big piles of glue and buttons… Love watching this kiddo’s creativity!

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Valentine Garland

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Much as with the Paper Snowflakes I made to decorate our home for Christmas, this project is really more a grown-up craft to make the house feel festive for Valentine’s Day, and Travis was a bit too young to help. Preschoolers on up, however, might love to help cut out the hearts with you!

To set up, I cut hearts from pink and red construction paper, and then smaller hearts from white paper to fit in the centers.

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Arrange your larger hearts on a work surface and squirt glue in the middle of each – I did briefly enlist Travis to help with this task!

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Lay a length of red-and-white twine across the gluey hearts, making sure to leave enough twine at each end for hanging your garland, and then press the white hearts down on top.

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Once the glue dries, adorn your home with hearts! Travis did enjoy helping me select the location for our garlands, including our front door and hallway bench. You can repeat this simple craft as many times as you like to decorate all the areas of your home.

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