Winter Activities

Crafts

Fluffy Snowman                                                                           

 Cut a snowman shape out of construction paper.  Have the children paint glue on the snowman, tear kleenex into pieces, and stick on the glue.  This project is very easy for all ages.

Top Hat Snowman                                                

Cut a circle out of tagboard or cardstock.  Cut a black construction paper hat. Let the children decorate the hat with assorted materials, foam snowflakes, stickers, glitter, sequence, etc.  Older children can cut eyes out of black construction paper and younger ones can use stickers or wiggly eyes.  Add a mouth and nose.  Glue on a craft stick.  Works great with the 5 Little Snowmen song below.

Child on a Sled                     

  Have the kids color the pattern with crayon or marker. Older kids can cut it out themselves.  Glue the child on the sled and attach a yarn string. .                                                                                               

Left and Right

Have children cute out two mittens.  Glue the mittens to the paper.  Paint their Left hand white (or any color you prefer) and have them make a handprint on the Left mitten.  Repeat with the Right hand.                                                                         

Decorated Mittens   

Draw mittens around the child's hands. Let them cut out and decorate with markers, collage materials and stickers.  Use a hole puncher to to punch holes in each mitten and string together with yarn.

Snow pictures       

Add salt to white tempera paint and have the children paint on black or dark blue construction paper.                     

SONGS

Five Little Snowmen Fat

(to act this song out with the children make 5 snowmen puppets on craft sticks - each with a different type of hat)

Five little snowmen fat

Each with a funny hat

Out came the sun and melted one

What a sad thing was that

 Down, down, down   (one child "melts" to the floor)

Dance Like Snowflakes

(tune Are You Sleeping)

Dance like snowflakes, dance like snowflakes,

In the air, in the air,

Whirling, twirling snowflakes, whirling, twirling snowflakes,

Here and there, here and there.

I'm a Little Snowman

I'm a little snowman, short and stout,

Sticks for arms and a carrot snout.

When the weather warms up, gosh, oh gee!

I melt and there's no more of me!

Group Activities                              

Mitten Mix-up

Have each of the children bring their mittens to group time. Have them sit in a circle and put their mittens in the middle.  Mix them up.  Call the children's name 2 at a time and have them go to the middle and find their mittens or any two mittens that match. 

Variation: give each child one mitten and put the second mittens in the middle.  Sing the following song to have each child find the matching mitten.

(tune If your happy and you know it) 

Each mitten has a mate, has a mate.

Each mitten has a mate, has a mate.

Can (child's name) find the pair?

(He/She) is looking here and there.

Can (child's name) find the mat, find the mate?

Snowball on a Spoon 

Give each child a styrofoam ball to carry on a large spoon.  Encourage each child to try to walk as slowly  as they can, then as fast as they can without dropping the "snowball".

Indoor Snowball Fight

Use rolled up newspaper or those poofy shower things and have the kids have an inside snowball fight.  Can get wild but is relatively safe.

Winter is Cold

Take a piece of tagboard and draw a line down the center.  Label one side with a sun and Summer, label the other side with a snowflake and Winter.  Cut pictures of Winter (snowsuits, mittens, boots, etc) and summer clothes (swimsuits, shorts, t-shirts) from a catalog.  Have each child take turns picking a picture from a bowl and placing it on the correct side of the tagboard.