These Winter Activities Are Snow Much Fun!

Winter is here! As the colder weather is upon us, so are cozy blankets, flannel pajamas, and hot chocolate. However, just because the temperature has dropped doesn’t mean you and your kids can’t enjoy the brisk winter air and activities outdoors! When the boredom strikes and the holiday movies end, here are four kid-friendly outdoor activities that address fine and gross motor skills, coordination, strength, motor planning, and play skills.

Colored Spray Bottles

Fill up spray bottles with warm water and draw or make “targets” on the ground with chalk, sticks, or leaves. If it’s snowy, add food coloring to the water, and make designs or play a guessing game of what shape you’re making while you watch the snow melt from the warm water! Don’t have spray bottles at home? Use a squeezable sports bottle, turkey baster with a bowl or cup of water, or small eye droppers to make designs.

Snow Castles

Dust off your old beach toys and put them to use in the winter by making snow castles! Other containers from the kitchen, such as cake pans, muffin tins, plastic bowls, and cups, can be fun and new ways to mold the perfect imaginary castle or igloo. Roll the snow into balls to make small “snow people” to fit inside the castle, or bring out plastic toys or animals to live inside.

Snow scavenger hunt

There are so many varieties of outdoor scavenger hunts to keep your kids busy outside. Bring bath toys or snow-friendly toys from indoors and bury them for your child to find. Give them clues to work on visual scanning and following directions to search for and find the buried toy “treasures!” Giving them big or small shovels to dig the toys out will help increase their strength and motor skills. You can make a smaller scavenger hunt by hiding smaller toys in a bowl or container, or hide the toys throughout the entire yard for a bigger challenge. Expand your scavenger hunt to the neighborhood and search for animal prints in the snow, go on a hunt for pine cones, or play “I Spy.” With multiple kids, you can take turns pulling each other on a sled in the snow or in a wagon on the sidewalk with buckets for the collections.

Snow obstacle course or maze

While summer brought the sidewalk chalk sensory paths, winter brings the snow mazes and obstacle courses. Use shovels to dig a path for a maze and hide or place toys along the route for your child to collect along the maze route. Use sticks, pine cones, toy cones, a sled, and hula hoops to create an obstacle course in the snow. Work with your child to create different moves such as jumping over sticks, weaving through pine cones, pulling a sled, and throwing snowballs into hula hoops. Challenge them to “race” you or a sibling through the course or make each step an event in your very own “winter olympics.”