We have already had winter for a month where I live…and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon! I grew up here, so the cold, harsh winters are a part of life (not necessarily an enjoyable part of life!), but a few friends of mind, who are new to the area, have asked me, “What do you do with your kids in the winter? It’s impossible!”
While the winters do get long and are extremely cold, we find ways to stay active. However, this year will be more challenging, with many of those winter activities put on hold due to our pandemic circumstances. Nevertheless, we must press on!
Now, more than ever, we need to get creative in getting our children outside to play! In many areas, children are spending seven to eight hours a day on computers just to do school. Seriously, that is not healthy for a child’s brain.
I am begging you…Please get your kids outside to play and do your very best to limit that screen time! Yes, limiting screen time means your children will be busy playing, and probably making messes, but aren’t their brains worth it?
If you’re lucky enough to have warm weather year-round…or at least survivable weather year-round, then there’s no reason for your kids to not be getting outside. But if you live in a cold climate, you know outdoor winter activities can be a bit trickier.
There are a couple of basic things you can do to encourage your child to spend some time outside, even when it’s cold.
First, invest in good winter clothing. The main difference between kids who love to play outside in the winter, and those who hate it, is warmth. I hate being cold. As soon as my hands or feet get cold, I’m pretty much done!
So, getting good gloves and boots are high priorities. Of course, the rest of the gear needs to be good quality too, but gloves and boots are really important. This could make a big difference between your children wanting to play outside, and not.
Here are some great outdoor activities that you can do in the cold, winter weather. Some are quick, but can be done multiple times—or just once, depending on how cold it actually is and how long your gear keeps you warm.
Fun, Outdoor, Winter Activities for Families
This is an activity that I have never tried! I get excited when I find new activities for my children to do! I can guarantee my two daughters will love this, but I have a feeling that my sons will also like it because they love a challenge.
And don’t worry. You don’t need any weird ingredients, or long preparation. You simply blow bubbles outside and try to keep them from bursting, or catch them, so you can watch them freeze. So simple. SOOOO cool!
Young children will probably need some help doing this, if you want to see the actual effects of frozen bubbles; however, if your toddler is content just blowing the bubbles, let it happen!
Obviously, it needs to be a freezing temperature outside for this to work, so be sure to bundle up, and maybe use the cheap, stretchy gloves for your kids so they can have some coverage, but nothing so bulky they won’t be able to hold a bubble wand.
Have fun! And try to get some unique pictures along the way.
This is exactly like the baking soda and vinegar volcano you’ve probably done many times, except snow adds a fun, different element to it. Plus, the volcano, itself, is a lot easier to build out of the snow.
Just make a volcano shape out of snow around a cup; fill the cup with baking soda and pour vinegar on top. This will give you a hum-drum, but fun volcano. Take it up a notch by adding some food coloring to the vinegar.
This produces the eruption of “lava” in the color of your child’s choice and can leave some pretty great designs in the snow.
Baking soda and vinegar are inexpensive, and it’s outside, so let your child experiment and have fun! You may have an artistic child who wants to use the experiment to make designs in the snow. You may have a scientific child who wants to see how big the eruption gets when he doubles the ingredients.
Give them the ingredients and see what they come up with! Again, add another element to the fun by either snapping some pictures, or taking a video, if your child would enjoy it.
- Make molasses candy—
Have you read Little House in the Big Woods? If you haven’t, this is such a good book for your family to read together! Laura Ingalls Wilder and her sister, Mary, had very little to do for fun during the winters, but they always made fun!
For Christmas, they made molasses candy. Obviously, they didn’t have anything in the way of modern technology, so any idea for fun they had is pretty simple to recreate.
Here is a recipe, but you simply boil 1 cup of molasses and 1/2 cup of brown sugar together until it is at hard-crack stage on a candy thermometer. (Be sure to stir often so as not to burn the mixture.) I know this should go without saying, but you need to help your child with this!
Then let your child dip a spoon in and drizzle the mixture onto clean, white snow, or pour the syrup into a glass measuring cup and let your child pour it onto the snow. (You have to move quickly so the syrup doesn’t harden)
In the book, Pa brought two pans of clean snow inside, but you could bring your mixture outside too. You’ll just have to move faster because it won’t stay hot long.
Your child can make all sorts of different designs in the snow, and the mixture should harden on the snow to make hard candy.
I have not tried this activity because my son is allergic to molasses, but I should be able to find a substitute and make this happen! What a fun activity to do outside as a family!
- Play Fox and Geese—
We played this game in elementary school for Phy. Ed. in the winter. If you’ve never played, it’s a fun spin on the regular game of tag and a fun winter activity for kids.
It’s easy to play and fairly easy to prepare. Simply make paths in the snow in the shape of a wagon wheel. The small circle in the center serves as “home,” or “safe.”
One person is “it,” or the fox; the rest are the geese. The fox chases the geese to try to tag them, just like in tag. The difference is that the fox and the geese must stay on the paths. They cannot jump from one path to the next, or go through the middle snow.
Geese may go to rest in the small center, but can only be in 20 seconds (or whatever amount of time your family agrees upon beforehand.)
Inevitably, you’ll have a fox who wants to hang right outside of home, so I recommend laying that out as a rule beforehand too.
Whenever you play a game with your entire family, I recommend thinking of it as a Phy. Ed. class at school. Be very clear on the rules of the game before starting. This way, that “loophole finding” child in your family (we all have at least one, right?!) will not be able to frazzle and frustrate the rest of the players!
- Engineering Challenge/ Box-sled Race—
This one is fun and educational. I love a two birds, one stone, kind of activity! Get some big boxes. Do you know that you can call your appliance store and ask for their big boxes? I do this a lot for various projects (VBS decorating; Christmas program backdrops; etc.) and they are more than happy to give me their giant boxes from refrigerators, washers and dryers, ovens, and dishwashers.
Your kids can have so much fun with these! I mean, bring some huge boxes home and you’ll have busy kids for at least an hour.
But you can go beyond just giving them a box. Instead, give them a challenge!
Last year, my sons went to a winter youth retreat and one of the main highlights was crafting a box sled for the races. They worked as a team to make a sled out of nothing other than boxes and cardboard.
Some teams chose to make theirs look really good, but didn’t work so much on the aerodynamics; while others made their sleds work well, but maybe didn’t look so grand.
Of course, they didn’t have a lot of time to spend building their sleds, but you can take as much time as you want! Just set a date on the calendar for when you would take the sleds to the nearest sledding hill, and make a family competition out of it!
Invite some other families to participate too!
Before your children start working on their sleds, have them look at a sled and think about what makes it go down the hill easily, or quickly. Get them thinking about the engineering side of things to make this more educational.
Getting Your Kids Outside to Play
If you’re looking to change the fact that your children don’t like to play outside very often, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that it can be changed! The bad news is that it will start with you.
Basically, young children like to do anything their moms are doing. If you want your kids to learn to play outside, it probably won’t work to just send them out into a yard covered with snow…and nothing to get them started.
They will need guidance, at first. But if you get out there often with them, and teach them how to imagine things while you play together, soon, they will be able to say, “Hey! Let’s go play ___________like we did with Mom the other day!”
Imaginative Outdoor Play
If you need some help coming up with ideas for outdoor play, here are a few to get your imagination back into gear:
- Imagine with your child that you are astronauts on your way to the moon, but when you arrive, you see that the moon is covered in snow! What will you do?
- Pretend you are pioneers who have just arrived and need to make some type of shelter to protect you from the long, cold winter
- Choose a winter Olympic sport to be “the favorite” to win the Olympics. (My brother and I were the U.S. pairs figure-skating Olympic gold medalists when we were kids. I choreographed an entire routine, and well…he graciously complied, but we still have something to laugh about!)
- Pretend you are loggers and you run into the real Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox, Babe
With so much media and screen time, our children often don’t ever have to use their imaginations! But their imaginations are still there. They are just like a muscle that gets a little out of shape when not being used.
Our kids just need a little help engaging their imaginations. Once they get going, you might be amazed at the fun they come up with when playing outside!
Final Thoughts on Outdoor Family Activities
This year has been a year of screen time, like no other! A few of us have not been affected by the world of Zoom calls, but most have. Children are spending too much time on screens during their days, and we can’t let that become their normal.
Encourage your children to get outside and use their imaginations! It is absolutely necessary for brain development. COVID-19 has robbed us of a lot of things—some have lost their loved ones; some, their jobs; others have lost a lifestyle; so many have lost connections; and our children have lost activities that keep their brains engaged.
Do not let it steal their imaginations too! So, get busy and get outside for some family fun! We can do it!
RElated: 5 Benefits of Laughing with Your Kids
