Winter Activities with Children
Enjoy the Outdoors with Your Family in the Colder Months
Enjoy winter with your family. Read some ideas for getting your family outdoors with activites that take advantage of the local environment and build traditions.
We are often confined to our homes in winter with electronic games and television being the focus of attention. It can be hard to get children outside at anytime, and especially hard in winter.
But there’s nothing better than dressing in warm clothing and going outside for a walk or play. Afterwards children are relaxed and happy to do quiet indoor activities.
Enjoy Your Local Parks
Make good use of local parks in winter. Use the play equipment provided and take balls and a variety of bats. If your children have been inside during cold weather they will enjoy running in the wide-open spaces. After they’ve had plenty of time to run around, do some throwing, catching and kicking with the ball and bats you've brought along.
Nature Journals
Give each child a journal and take your children with their journals on a nature walk. Children learn much by being among nature, listening for birds and observing plants. Allow them plenty of time to enjoy the natural environment before writing and\or drawing in their journal. Adults can write the observations of younger children.
Outdoor Collage
Take a bag and scour your local area for leaves, shells (if you are near a beach), twigs, flowers and anything else suitable for collage. When you come inside bring out a large sheet of paper or card and some glue and begin making a collage of the things you've collected. Add drawings, paintings and words, developing a theme such as the beach or countryside.
Decorating Rocks and Stones
Collect rocks and stones and decorate them with paints or felt tips, using all your creative powers – draw spiders, faces and patterns. Glue pipe cleaners, eyes and other decorations on your rocks, before leaving them to dry.
Winter Picnic
Wait for one of those fine, clear winter days, when everything looks and feels sharper than usual and set off to the nearest open space.
You can pack your lunch – a hot one if you have an insulated bag – and take a warm drink in a thermos.
Then when you arrive at your picnic site play a warming game like leapfrog (everyone crouches down in a line and the last person in the line jumps over each person before becoming the frog at the front, while the person at the end then ‘leapfrogs’). When you’ve had your lunch its time for more active games.
Different Daily Activities
Have a period of a week or two where you do a different outdoor activity every day. For school age children something different to look forward to each afternoon can lift winter spirits, and if you are at home for the winter school holidays, or with preschoolers, planning different activities gives structure to each day.
Some activities could be: -
- Planting a winter garden – in pots or in the ground.
- Going to a park you’ve never been to before.
- Having a walk in a part of town or in the countryside that’s new to you.
- Playing backyard sports, improvising with the space and equipment you have.
- Taking a ride on public transport and having a walk before riding home again.
- Feeding ducks at parks, rivers or ponds.
After you’ve been outside come back for a warm drink and talk about your day’s activity.
Enjoy the winter. Make it a season that has its own special activities and traditions, to be experienced as part of the ongoing change of seasons.
