How to Play Two New Games in the Snow
Original Ideas for Creating the Most Fun Snow Day Ever
Dec 11, 2008
Kids will always enjoy the winter standards like snow ball fights, building snowmen, and making snow angels, but why not introduce a few new games this year?
Snow Tracking
In this game, kids use their best deductive reasoning skills to find a cleverly concealed object.
Parents and kids first need to agree on something to look for. It should be brightly colored and able to stick upright out of the snow. Some examples might be a red plastic spoon, a plastic gardening toy, or a brightly colored ruler.
The kids can flip a coin or draw straws to determine who will hide the object first. The rest of the family waits five minutes behind the front door until the object is hidden.
The person hiding the object in the snow can use any clever ploy such as criss-crossing pre-made footprints, backtracking in his own prints, sliding on his belly, covering his tracks, walking where snow has been shoveled, or climbing over an obstacle. Anything goes. The only rules are that the flag must be hidden within a boundary set by parents and must be visible poking out of the snow.
When the family members set out to look, they analyze the tracks as a group and the person who hid the flag comes along, hopefully with a good poker face. One person needs to keep a stop watch to see how long it takes to find the hidden object. Whoever’s hiding place takes longest to scope out is the winner.
Snow Tug-of-War
A classic game that takes on a whole new meaning in the snow is tug-of-war. Parents or kids can poke a stake in the middle of an uncluttered area and lay out a rope with the midway point lined up with the marker. On a count of “1, 2, 3, Go!” the slipping and sliding begins. Whichever side can pull its opponents past the stake is named the winner.
Another fun variation to the classic game of tug-of-war is played with a rope tied into a circle. Four family members each take a corner. Behind each at an equal distance of about four feet is a toy or other object. On the word “Go!” each opponent pulls in their own direction. The first to grab hold of the object in their corner wins.
There’s no end to the fun families can enjoy in the snow this winter. For more great ideas, parents can check out how to put a curve on a standard snowball fight, how to make an impenetrable snow fort, and how to get artistic in the snow.
