Winter activities for kids

If there is snow outside

Dress for it, go out for twenty minutes, come back in. Short and often beats one long cold hour, and everything here works in a yard, a park or a car park with a drift in the corner.

Catch a snowflake

Ages 4 and up. You need: Black paper, a magnifying glass

Leave a piece of black paper outside until it is as cold as the air, then catch falling snow on it. Look through the magnifying glass before the flakes melt. Count the arms: six, nearly always six.

Snow paint

Ages 3 and up. You need: Spray bottles, water, food coloring

Half-fill spray bottles with water and a few drops of coloring. Draw on the snow. Big arm movements are the point, so aim for whole letters or a giant face.

Measure the snowfall

Ages 5 and up. You need: A ruler, a notebook

Push a ruler straight down into fresh snow and write down the number. Check the same spot every hour. Make a bar chart at the end of the day.

Melt race

Ages 4 and up. You need: Three cups of snow

Put one cup in the fridge, one on a table, one in a sunny window. Guess the order they will melt in, then check every ten minutes. Was the guess right?

Footprint detective

Ages 5 and up. You need: Nothing

Find tracks in fresh snow: birds, a cat, a dog, a person. Follow one as far as it goes. Who made it, and were they hurrying or strolling?

Snow volcano

Ages 6 and up. You need: Baking soda, vinegar, dish soap, food coloring

Build a snow mound with a cup-sized hole in the top. Put in two spoons of baking soda, a squirt of soap and some coloring, then pour in vinegar. It fizzes over the snow. No heat and nothing to light.

If it is cold but there is no snow

Most winters, most places, there is no snow at all. These need frost, a cold night or just a short day, and several of them are better without snow covering everything up.

Ice suncatchers

Ages 4 and up. You need: A shallow dish, leaves and berries, string

Lay leaves, berries and a loop of string in a dish of water and leave it outside overnight, or in the freezer. Turn out the disc in the morning and hang it where the light comes through. It will last until it thaws.

Frost hunt

Ages 3 and up. You need: A phone camera, warm gloves

Go out early and photograph frost on a car window, a gate, a leaf, a spider web. Compare the patterns indoors afterwards. Frost grows in lines, like tiny ferns.

Puddle ice

Ages 5 and up. You need: A frozen puddle

Lift a sheet of puddle ice and hold it up to the light. How thick is it? Can you see bubbles? Press a finger to it and watch the print fade.

Bird cafe

Ages 4 and up. You need: A pine cone, lard or suet, birdseed, string

Press lard into a pine cone with a spoon, roll it in seed and hang it from a branch with string. Watch from a window and keep a tally of who visits. A grown-up handles the lard; wash hands after.

Winter sound map

Ages 6 and up. You need: Paper, a pencil

Stand still outside for three minutes with eyes closed. Mark every sound on a page with you in the middle: a car to the left, a crow above, feet behind. Winter is quieter, and that is the discovery.

Shadow at noon

Ages 7 and up. You need: Chalk, a sunny day

Chalk round your shadow at noon and write the date. Do it again in March. The winter one is much longer, because the sun is low. That is the same reason the days are short.

If you are stuck indoors

For the afternoon it gets dark at four, the week everyone has a cold, or the holiday that has gone on a day too long.

Paper snowflakes, six sides

Ages 5 and up. You need: Paper, scissors

Fold a square in half on the diagonal, then in thirds like a fan, then in half again. Cut shapes into the folded edges and open it. Six sides, like the real thing. Round-ended scissors for younger children.

Blanket fort

Ages 3 and up. You need: Blankets, chairs, clips

Chairs for the walls, a blanket over the top, clips at the corners. Read inside it with a flashlight, never a candle. Leave it up for a week if the room can spare it.

Hot chocolate science

Ages 5 and up. You need: Cocoa, milk, two mugs

A grown-up makes two mugs, one stirred for thirty seconds and one not stirred at all. Taste both. Stirring breaks the cocoa into the milk; the unstirred one leaves a sludge at the bottom. A grown-up pours anything hot.

Indoor snowball fight

Ages 4 and up. You need: White socks

Roll socks into balls. Two teams, a line of tape down the middle, two minutes. Whoever has fewer on their side at the end wins. Move the breakables first.

Winter window scene

Ages 4 and up. You need: White paint or a bar of soap, a window

Draw a winter scene straight onto the glass with a wet bar of soap or washable paint. It wipes off with a cloth. The outside becomes the background.

Grow a crystal

Ages 7 and up. You need: Epsom salts, warm water, a jar, a dark cloth

A grown-up stirs Epsom salts into warm water until no more will dissolve. Cool it, then leave the jar still and covered overnight. Needle crystals form on the bottom. Look at them with a magnifying glass before they dry out.

Read in the dark hour

Ages Any. You need: A book

The sun sets early, so make the hour before dinner the reading hour. One lamp, everybody in the same room, everybody with something to read. Nobody has to read aloud unless they want to.

Winter activities by age

Winter science in one line each

• Why snowflakes have six sides. Water molecules lock together at the same angle every time, so a flake grows outward in six directions. No two are alike because each one falls through slightly different air.
• Why your breath shows. Warm air from your lungs is full of water you cannot see. Cold air cannot hold it, so it turns into a tiny cloud.
• Why the days are short. The Earth leans. In winter your half leans away from the sun, so the sun stays low and crosses less sky. The shortest day is around 21 December in the north and 21 June in the south.
• Why salt clears a path. Salt makes water need to be colder than usual before it can freeze, so ice turns back into water at a temperature where it would normally stay ice.
• Why you feel colder in wind. Still air next to your skin warms up and acts like a blanket. Wind keeps blowing that blanket away.

Questions parents ask

What can kids do on a snow day with no school?

Split the day into three: an hour out in it, something made at a table, and a quiet hour before dark. The snow activities above cover the first, paper snowflakes and a blanket fort the second, and reading or a crystal jar the third. A whole day of one of the three is what tips a snow day into a hard day.

What are winter activities for toddlers?

Snow paint, frost hunt, catching snowflakes on black paper and a blanket fort. Keep to big movements and looking, skip the scissors and small parts, and plan on twenty minutes outside rather than an hour.

We get no snow. Is any of this still worth doing?

Most of it. The middle section needs only a cold night or a short afternoon, and ice suncatchers work from a freezer anywhere in the world. The science section needs nothing but your own breath and a shadow.

Are these safe to leave kids doing on their own?

A grown-up handles anything hot, the lard for the bird feeder, and the Epsom salts. Everything else is child-led. The blanket fort says a flashlight on purpose.

Is Peabody free?

Yes. Free, with no ads and no sign-up to start.