Winter Activities For Toddlers

In the UK, the start of winter is dominated by Christmas and so a lot of the activities we do in December are Christmas-based. But winter lasts for almost another three months so I’ve compiled some ideas for winter-themed activities that can keep you and your toddler going through January, February and March.

You could maybe have a week of themed activities based around winter. There are loads of winter books out there about the season and about animals which live in the cold.

• Frozen toys – Freeze some of their smaller toys in ice cube trays and then let them play with them frozen. They could try to melt the ice with water or use lolly sticks to push their toys around a tuff tray as if they’re skating.
• Snow play – If it snows where you are, take the kids outside in winter coats, hats and gloves and build a snowman, make snow angels and have a snowball fight.
• Bring the snow indoors – If where you live is too cold to go out in the snow, bring the snow indoors. Put some in a large tray and let your toddler play with it inside.
• Snow paint – Bring snow in from outside, provide watered down paint and let your toddler loose painting the snow in a tray.
• Snowflake patterns – Stick masking tape down to the floor in the shape of a snowflake. Provide your toddler with cotton wool balls or other small items and let them them line the cotton wool balls up along the lines of the snowflake.
• Make white cloud dough – Using equal parts bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and shaving foam, you can make some dough which has the texture of snow.
• Sticky Snowman – Stick a large piece of contact paper onto a wall/low window and draw on the outline of a snowman. Provide your little one with craft pieces and cotton wool and they can decorate the snowman.
• Feed A Snowman Game – Make a snowman from a transparent drinks bottle. Decorate him so you can still see inside. Give your toddler some toddler tweezers and cotton wool balls and invite them to pick up the balls to put inside the snowman. As he gets filled up with the cotton wool balls, he will become whiter and whiter and start to look more like a snowman.
• Snowflake Fine Motor Skills – Twist 4 sparkly pipe cleaners together to make a snowflake shape. Invite your toddler to thread beads onto each strand of the snowflake.
• Snowball Toss – Pour uncooked rice into white socks and fold over the tops so the rice doesn’t come out. Then create some targets with some baskets and have a game of snowball toss where you have to throw the “snowballs” at the targets.

What Winter Art Projects Can I Do With My Toddler?

My favourite art projects with young children are ones where the outcome for each child is different. They are given the same resources but all use their imagination and skills in a different way so as to create a unique piece of art. This is sometimes called “process art”.

Here are some ideas for winter art projects that you can do with your toddler this year:

• Snowball Painting – Using a large white or silver pom-pom attached to a peg, invite your toddler to paint a snow scene of snow falling from the sky. You will need white and light blue paint and black or dark blue paper.
• Melted Snowman – Provide dark coloured paper or card. Invite your toddler to either finger paint or with white paint. Then, give them pre-cut parts of a snowman: black top hat, colourful scarf, three black round buttons, two googly eyes and a carrot nose. Your toddler can then glue these pieces on the page wherever they like as it is a melted snowman. We used this artwork to create “Thank You” cards for friends and family after Christmas. See more ideas for “Thank You” cards here.
• Winter Collage – Using a piece of blue paper, provide your child with pieces of tin foil, cotton wool, pieces of blue and white paper and tissue paper cut up into squares and circles. They can then glue their work onto the blue paper to make a beautiful winter-themed piece of artwork.