Winter activities for children
The luster of the children’s Christmas gifts has worn off. Here are a few ideas for activities from one Grandma to help parents get through the next few weeks of winter until Spring arrives. These ideas are for elementary school age children who live where there is snow.
Sand toys – A bucket and shovel is as great a toy for the beach in the summer but use them in the snow the same way you use sand. Think – a white sand castle that melts. Mixing up some water with food coloring in a spray bottle to tint your castle’s wall or to write messages in the snow.
Craft Box – This is something I used for trips in the car but it does adapt to indoor winter play. Take a box, you pick the size, and fill with crayons, paper, pages from a coloring book, glue, scissors, paints, whatever. Bring it out for the children to play with and store it way when they are done. Add to the Craft Box as you find stuff ( things like stickers, sparkle ink pens, cute picture, etc.) that might engage the child’s imagination.
Indoor camping – We had a folding card table that was stored under a bed. Once the children discovered it, that card table become the center of their indoor-outdoor adventures. All they needed was that table and a blanket thrown over it to build a tent for hours of fun. My grandson used the sofa, coffee table, a couple of chairs and a bucket of clothes pins to construct his tent.
Bird watching kit – Collect bird food, binoculars, a birding book from the local library, and a sunny window. Sprinkle bird food outside the window, maybe in a pie pan or a bird feeder you have constructed with your child, and wait for our feathered friends to arrive. Watching birds in the winter is a great way to connect children with nature. Here’s a simple idea for a bird feeder – take a large pine cone, smear with smooth peanut butter and roll in bird seed. Tie it high up a tree or some place easily seen from that sunny window.
Evening Grosbeak, Black-capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal (male and female) and Eastern Bluebird
Gardening kit – From your local hardware store, pick up a packet of seeds (child’s choice), peat pellets and pots and start growing seeds indoors. You can always grow herbs indoors, but you can also do what a lot of gardeners in cold climates do; start sees indoors in February and replant outside in April. I liked growing those “midget” carrots in a big pot and, when ready, serving them as snacks to the children. But my children seemed to take more pride when I served the tomato and pepper plants they started inside and had transplanted outside.
