Winter Activities

In Nebraska this winter has seemed to drag on much too long.  Our little house doesn't offer much opportunity for the kids get up and run around.  It is a challenge to keep the kids engaged in activity without the activity getting too wild. 
When we had snow days at the beginning of January we brought snow inside and gave the kids old dried up markers.  They could sculpt the snow and color it as desired to create snow sculptures.  They had a lot of fun not just making the sculptures but watching them melt and observing the colors that resulted.

 

Using the dried up markers in the snow (or water) is much like painting with water colors.

 

The kids requested to leave the sculptures sitting out to watch them melt. They were fascinated with the rainbow that appeared on this tray. 

 We used our art trays that had dried paint from marble painting and glitter from Christmas ornament projects.  This gave the snow sculptures an interesting look (and cleaned our trays too! )

This kept the kids occupied for a good part of the afternoon and clean up was easy--just dump in the sink and wash the trays.   This is a great activity for multi-age groups. The younger kids learn so much from the older kids.