How to Keep Children Occupied During a Snow Day
When snow and ice arrive and cancel schools, parents must entertain their children. Sure, there are video games and movies, but those grow old. It may even be too cold for sledding, making snow angels and snowball fights. So what's a parent to do, especially if there are numerous days in a row of being cooped up? There are many educational and fun activities available to help stave off cabin fever.
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Things You'll Need
- Clean snow
- Large mixing bowl
- 1 to 2 cups of milk, preferably whole
- 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or other liquid flavoring
- 1/2 to 1 cup white sugar
- Blankets, full-size or larger
- Sheets, full-size or larger
- Glue
- Rice
- Dry pasta
- Dry beans
- White printer or colored construction paper
- Movies
- Non-breakable toy figurines that can stand independently
- Small, light-weight ball
- Writing paper
- Pens and pencils
- Jigsaw puzzle
- Jigsaw puzzle glue
- Poster frame to fit the jigsaw puzzle
Instructions
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Fun In the Kitchen
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Make snow cream. Fill a large mixing bowl with fresh, clean snow. Stir 1 to 2 cups of milk into the snow (or less according to desired consistency). Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or other flavoring to taste. Stir 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar into the mixture to preferred sweetness. Talk to your children about ways that people made ice cream before it was available in stores.
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2
Choose recipes with your children to create a fun dinner for the entire family. Assign cooking duties to each child based on her age and ability. For example, younger children can help pour ingredients that older children pre-measure.
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3
Glue pasta, beans, rice and other dry goods to white printer or colored construction paper to make a design or picture.
Games to Play
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Play "Sardines." One child finds a hiding place in the house while the other children cover their eyes. The children search on their own for the hiding child. If one child finds the one who is hiding, he must join the hiding child, pressing into the hiding spot as closely as possible to avoid detection.
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Build a fort by draping blankets and sheets between existing pieces of furniture to create rooms, using movable furniture as support. Help the children make up a story about why they are building a fort. The stories can range from medieval castles to modern-day cabins in the snow-covered woods.
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Arrange dolls, toy figurines or other "bowling pins" at the end of a cleared hallway to create a bowling alley. Take turns tossing a small, light-weight ball at the pins from the opposite end of the hallway.
Other Fun Activities
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7
Piece together a family jigsaw puzzle. Place a cardboard mat on the table, and assemble all of the pieces on the mat. Glue the puzzle to the mat with puzzle glue, and allow it to dry for 24 hours. Frame the puzzle inside a poster frame. Let the children help decide where to display it.
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8
Play "I'm a Movie Critic." Watch and critique movies with your children. Ask them what they liked, what they didn't like and what they would do differently if they were the director. This adds value to spending time watching movies. If the children are old enough to write their answers, have them use lined writing paper to write their thoughts before they share.
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Enlist your child's help in cleaning the house by making it a contest and providing a prize for accomplishing specific goals. Another way to make it fun is to create a scavenger hunt where your children are required to find certain items throughout the house as they clean.
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Tips & Warnings
Coordinate with your neighbors and take turns hosting a single activity for all the children. This gives the parents a break and the children new playmates.
Using recipes is a good time to show older children how fractions and measurements affect their daily lives. You can make the recipe larger or smaller by helping children do the math to change the recipe.
When planning a meal, use a theme such as "What they ate in the 1800s for dinner" or "What they eat in Italy." This shows the children a taste of history or of another culture while giving them something fun to do.
Make sure to set out a bowl while it is snowing to collect the snow for snow cream. This helps ensure the snow has not been soiled by animals or the ground.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit snow days image by tamdesigns from Fotolia.com
