Winter activities for 3 year olds
Winter Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers – Happiest Baby
Winter can be a particularly challenging time for keeping little kids entertained. Cabin fever is real, and it can be brutal. But with a few supplies that you probably already have around your house, you can turn a boring, cold winter day into a fun adventure filled with activities that activate your child’s imagination. Check out these 30 winter activities for toddlers that you can try right now.
Image and activity via Happy Toddler Playtime
Kids LOVE to make messes, and parents…well, parents aren't quite as rapturous about cleaning them up. That’s exactly what makes this project so much fun. Kids will have a blast making a sticky mess without destroying the house.
Image and activity via Little Bins for Little Hands
Why not sprinkle in some science to your day? Check out this snowball launcher activity that easily turns into a game for the whole family.
Image and activity via Powerful Mothering
Kiddos keep their fingers busy working with some homemade dough resembling freshly fallen snow. Bonus: This snow dough is “taste safe,” which means kids won’t get sick if their curiosity prompts them to take a nibble.
Image and activity via Brilliant Little Minds
This snow painting project is perfect for young toddlers. Plus, it makes for pretty, wintry décor!
Image and activities via The Best Ideas for Kids
Go outside and grab some pinecones, and then mix in a few ingredients from the kitchen to make this sensory box that emulates snow and will give your kids some tactile delight.
Image and activity via Busy Toddler
If you face the challenge of having your kids whip through activities at breakneck speed, then this will definitely help slow their roll. Freeze your paint into a popsicle and have your kids create works of art as the paint begins to melt.
Image and activity via Entertain Your Toddler
This sneaky STEM project invites kids to drop snowballs into jars and then watch them explode with color. Talk about a bright idea!
Image and activity via Inspire Uplift
This is perfect for little kids who can’t keep their hands off the real tree. Create your own felt version of a Christmas tree and let your kids go to town decorating (and redecorating) their own.
Image and activity via A Little Pinch of Perfection
Sensory projects are so much fun but they tend to get pretty darn messy. Try this cleaner twist and watch your child have a great time without worrying about picking up later.
If you have an old cardboard box and some imagination, you’re halfway there! With this winter activity, kids get to try death-defying ski jumps without ever getting hurt.
Image and activity via Blanket Fort
Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned blanket fort? Try dressing yours up with twinkly lights, pillows, cozy books.
..it's the perfect nook for reading, playing, or even sipping hot cocoa!
Image and activity via Toddler Approved
Kids can decorate these larger-than-life “cookies” to their hearts’ content! If you don’t have a roll of craft paper, try cutting up brown paper grocery bags or using the white side of old wrapping paper.
Image and activity via Busy Toddler
This winter activity for toddlers is perfect for busy bodies who love to have something to do. Fill one tub or bowl with ice and another with colored water. Then, let your kiddo go to town moving the ice to the water to see what happens.
Image and activity via 5 Minutes for Mom
Grab the recycling bin and get busy painting some cans to create the equipment you’ll need to play this DIY game. Toddlers will especially love tossing bean bags at the stacked cans.
Image and activity via Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten
If your kids have ever pretended that the floor is lava, this winter activity is the game for them.
Create a few icebergs out of paper or fabric and turn your floor into an Arctic ice field that your kids must hop around to navigate.
Image and activity via Kids Craft Room
You’ll want to help your toddler with this one. With just a few materials, you can work together to create sparkling icicles that you can save as ornaments, decorate a window to catch some sun-rays, or even turn into a mobile to hang in your child’s room.
Image and activity via Little Bins for Little Hands
If you’ve ever spent a winter in New England, you may have heard of this one. Using snow and some maple syrup, your kids can make their own delicious candy that will double as a magical memory when they grow up.
Image and activity via Hands On as We Grow
This winter activity looks like too much fun! If you are one of those people who saves bubble wrap to reuse, then you’ll have plenty of pop for this project.
Image and activity via Teaching 2- and 3-Year-Olds
It’s amazing what you can fit into a bottle with this discovery activity that is perfect for little kids.
Combine some small objects with glitter in a clear plastic bottle, and you’ve got some sparkly on-the-go entertainment.
Image and activity via 123 Homeschool 4 Me
Grab some food coloring and suit up with this winter activity that will get the whole family outside and playing in the snow.
Image and activity via Mombrite
Want to have…a blast? This winter activity blends science with pure delight.
Image and activity via Happy Toddler Playtime
This winter activity for toddlers can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be, which is perfect for little kids. Grab a cookie sheet, a marble, and some snow, and make your own marble run.
Image and activity via Living Well Mom
Make some DIY salt crystals that you can decorate your windows with. You can create colorful, sparkling snowflakes that will last the rest of winter.
Image and activity via Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten
Sometimes little kid art makes the perfect gift.
Sit down with your toddler and make a bunch of fun tissue paper art projects and then give them to friends and family.
Image and activity via No Stress Homeschooling
This is the perfect activity for the little Elsa in your life. With the magic of science, your toddler can freeze bubbles and then watch in wonder at the colorful pile.
Image and activity via Kids Craft Room
Not only is this an art project that kids will love but it’s also a puppet show! Your chicks will have fun creating a hatching penguin but why stop there? Create hatching birds, lizards, dragons, aliens, anything your child can dream up.
Image and activity via Raising Little Superheroes
Yup. You can make hot chocolate slime! Kids will love getting their hands lost in this gooey messy fun.
Image and activity via Playdough to Plato
This set of DIY playdough comes in mint, hot chocolate, and pine.
It might be hard for the grownups to not play with it, to be honest.
Image and activity via No Time for Flashcards
Sometimes kids need to focus on something for a while to help ward off cabin fever. This hole punch snowflake project is perfect for kids with too much energy who need somewhere to direct their focus. Bonus? You can decorate your house with their creations when they’re done!
Image and activity via Learning and Exploring Through Play
Teach your kids about local birds by creating these fun cookie cutter bird feeders that you can hang outside your windows. Watch and learn as birds stop by to munch a winter treat.
View more posts tagged, education & learning
Have questions about a Happiest Baby product? Our consultants would be happy to help! Connect with us at [email protected].
Disclaimer: The information on our site is NOT medical advice for any specific person or condition.
It is only meant as general information. If you have any medical questions and concerns about your child or yourself, please contact your health provider.
Winter Activities for Toddlers - My Bored Toddler
Why not share this post!
20.5K shares
- Share9
- Tweet
Are you looking for Winter activities for toddlers? There are so many great winter activities to choose from and 'we've found some of the best winter crafts for you. We also have a great collection of Winter Sensory Play Ideas that have been very popular.
If you are looking to create a Winter Craft box (I love themed craft boxes - they're easy to pull out each day and contain most of the items I'm using for that theme) then these are some of the items I would include:
Waddling Handprint Penguin from Rubber Boots and Elf Shoes
Tape Resist Snowflake - Mommy's Bundle
Footprint Robin - Messy Little Monster
Winter Tree Sun Catcher - Buggy and Buddy
Easy Icicle Painting- Mommy's Bundle
Snowman Craft - Gift of Curiosity
Penguin Story Stones - Adventures of Adam
Snowflake Crown - Me Plus 3 Today
Winter Snowflake Painting from Little Bins for Little Hands
Painting Ice from Pocket of Preschool
Winter Wonderland Small World Play from Clare's Little Tots
Winter Snow Dough from Gift of Curiosity
Jumbled Snowman from Playground Parkbench
Marshmallow Names from Fun-A-Day
Snow Play Dough from PreK-Pages
Water Color Doily Snowflakes from Crafty Morning
Sticky Paper Snowman Craft from Gift of Curiosity
Easy Snowman Craft - Teaching 2 and 3 year olds
Snowy Paper Collage - A little Pinch of Perfect
Spinning Snowmen - Sun Hats and Wellie Boots
Puffy Snowmen - Encouraging Moms at Home
Puffy Paint Paper Plate Snowman - Artys Momma
Snowman Ornament Keepsakes - Learning and Exploring Through Play
Open ended Snowflakes - Gift of Curiosity
If you want to keep your toddler busy makes sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter , Instagram and Pinterest
If you enjoyed these activities for toddlers you may also like Winter Sensory Play Ideas for Toddlers
or Snowman Crafts for Toddlers
10 winter activities for kids with and without snow
What would you like to do outside in winter if there is no snow? No weather will prevent children from having fun and having fun! The main thing is to know what to do.
Ksenia Buksha suggests recalling a dozen familiar and unusual winter activities.
1. Decorate trees and bushes in the yard
At plus three degrees bushes in yards, squares and parks look dull: no leaves, no flowers, not even snow. This can be helped. The Christmas trees are over, but the desire for beauty is eternal. We take colored paper, strings, small Christmas decorations - we decorate a familiar bush, take pictures against its background and post pictures on Instagram! If they decorated it not only with paper, after some time it would be good to remove it all and collect it so that there is no garbage left.
2. Feeding the birds
Birds have a hard time even in a snowless winter. You can feed pigeons with millet, ducks with oatmeal or pearl barley. Just not bread: it is harmful to birds. And if you want, try to make the right feeder (there are a lot of ideas, including those not made of wood).
3. Launch LED helicopters
It's still getting dark early, but it's getting late.
On a walk in a snowless winter, you can play with the darkness. Buy LED helicopters with slingshots for kids and launch colorful lights into the overcast sky of the era of global warming. It’s definitely impossible to freeze even in a very fierce wind: a gambling, joyful and festive activity, no worse than playing snowballs.
4. Break the ice in the puddles and make an ice mosaic
Suppose it got a little colder, there is no snow, but ice appeared on the puddles. It is very fun to break it by jumping from all over. Children love to test the ice for strength in shallow and deep puddles. It is at a temperature of about zero that you can get "puddle" ice floes and lay out an ice mosaic from them. Well, yes, of course, the ice in the city is dirty, but this usually does not bother children, and then you can wash your hands.
5. Watch the weather and daylight hours
The most interesting thing is to start doing it in winter. After all, whatever one may say, it’s coming to spring.
And even if the weather does not indulge us, then the daylight hours increase a little all the time and give reasons for joy. It may be difficult to track the movements of the sun itself in the city, but we can tell for sure when the lanterns are turned on and off. And write down the results of observations. You can also note other indicators - air temperature, precipitation and wind. Many younger students and even older preschoolers love this.
6. Leave footprints in the snow
Oh, and here comes the snow! True, there is very little of it: a thin layer covered the asphalt and the ground in the squares. But even this amount is enough to draw footprints in the snow. Draw a Christmas tree and a sun from the footprints, alternating small and large footprints, make a battlement wall - in general, fantasize yourself.
7. Making small colored snowmen
Miracle: there is a little more snow (well, let's say). Of course, it is wet - at zero degrees, how else? We take advantage of this whim of the weather and make tiny colored snowmen out of wet snow.
The body is the size of three snowballs, eyes and a mouth made of berries or sticks. Let's take a sprayer with us for a walk and prepare water strongly tinted with gouache (recipe: a teaspoon of gouache well mixed in a half-liter bottle). And now let's paint our snowmen and rejoice at how unusual they are! If you bring a little more snow, you can build a whole tower.
8. Throwing snow and playing snowballs
It all depends on how much snow we have and what kind it is. Everyone knows that you can really play snowballs only in moderately frosty weather. If the frost is strong, you can throw fluffy loose snow. If there is little snow, we collect it from different surfaces (preferably not from the ground) and throw armfuls at each other! Only with very young children it is better to be careful: they may cry out of habit. It is better to accustom them to snow gradually. As for strong, well-made snowballs, try not to hit anyone in the eye: you can leave a black eye and harm your health.
9. Snowy romance
Romance needs quite a bit of snow. It is enough to powder your hair with it a little or collect snow in your palm and breathe on it, watching how the crystals melt. You can watch snowflakes on a sleeve or mitten. And if there is a little more snow, make a “snow angel” (lie down in the snow and wave your arms so that a trace remains like from wings) or throw snow at each other like sand. In general, you can meditate on snow, and this is not only children's entertainment. A familiar mathematician admitted that his interest in the subject began with the contemplation of three snowflakes through which the only possible plane passed endlessly.
10. Rolling downhill
For children under three years old, it is most useful to go downhill not on a cheesecake or sled, but on their own buttocks, stomach or back. The ice track allows them to feel their body better, control traffic safely, and they won’t develop high speed like that.
Needless to say, the hill for this should not be too steep and long, but also not too gentle. Teach your child to immediately get up and go to the side so that no one runs over them.
Older children master ice-sleds and sleds, and it is very harmless for teenagers to learn to squat and ride on their feet. But the cheesecake is not quite what you need. On small hills, it rides slower than a sled, and on large and steep ones it loses control: the speed is often still less than on a sledge or on an ice rink, but at the same time it is almost impossible to turn to the side. If a child rides on a cheesecake with a parent, he has almost no contact with the surface of the mountain, which means he does not get the pleasure that “rolling and wallowing” gives him (tactile sensations, in smart words).
However, no matter what you ride, this entertainment still needs winter weather - at least a little, at least not for long. What we all wish for.
Winter fun, children's games and outdoor activities for children
One of the biggest problems of mankind is boredom.
Sometimes it makes us suffer incredibly, but often it is she who becomes the source of new grandiose discoveries. And yet the main task is not to accomplish great things, but simply to entertain yourself and others.
This question is relevant at any time of the year, but most of all in winter. Outside, it gets colder, big snowdrifts appear, and the roads are covered with ice. That and look: you will slip, you will fall and you will freeze. It makes you want to stay at home, wrap yourself in a warm blanket, make hot tea and spend time reading a book or TV shows, only occasionally looking at the bad weather outside.
But traditionally it is believed that fun at this time of the year is not only possible, but also interesting. Such games will help not only to have a good time, but also to earn yourself a sound sleep and even improve immunity.
And most importantly, it is not adults who are most bored, but children. In this article, we will look at how to make a winter walk with a child enjoyable and useful by turning it into a game.
Usually the problem of what to do with yourself is not so great. Adults work all day, and children go to school. Only a couple of hours in the evenings remain for joint fun. But is it possible to do at least something interesting during this time? In such cases, weekends come to the rescue, when it becomes possible to throw out all the accumulated emotions and realize the most daring ideas. But what if it's not just another weekend, but the winter holidays?
Children's entertainment during the winter holidays
The vacation period in the middle of winter can be safely distinguished as a separate season. And let the weather conditions at this time remain the same, but the world around takes on completely different colors. Crowds of boys and girls, despite the severe frost, ask their parents for a walk on the street, while promising to study perfectly and clean the room. And this all happens for a reason. Winter opens up a lot of new games and fun for kids of all ages.
It is no secret that many adults are very sympathetic to this time of year.
Outdoor activities, games and fun for children in winter
As mentioned earlier, most plans and ideas can be easily implemented in a couple of days. But what if the vacation lasted for a week or even two? Remember what impressions have been preserved in your memory from childhood and think about what you can offer your child? Or maybe you can draw something for yourself? Let's take a closer look at what you can do with children on a snowy day.
Sledding
The first thing worth mentioning in a conversation about winter is, of course, skiing. Take a sled and go to the nearest mountain. Believe me, the trip will bring great pleasure not only to your child, but also to you. But it’s worth being patient, because after each descent you will have to not only climb back, but also drag transport along with you.
Ride on ice skating
Great alternative to sleds.
Glaciers are much lighter and more compact, which will allow you to save energy on the ascent. Also, ice slides are much more common than good sledges. Do not miss this opportunity and enjoy the process with the children.
Have a snowball fight
A logical continuation of the summer game of knights and superheroes. Only now wooden swords have replaced balls of snow. You can play alone or with a large group. In any case, it will bring you a whole bunch of positive emotions and impressions.
In addition, such a pastime will help your children become more accurate and dexterous. After all, it will be necessary not only to hit the opponent, but also to evade his attacks.
Have a photo shoot
Another reason to once again take a walk in the winter with children. Here, photographs with colorful leaves have been replaced by photographs of the kingdom of the snow. Such entertainment will give you more than a dozen beautiful pictures with bright and genuine emotions.
So you can not only have fun, but also save this episode as a keepsake.
Build a fortress
What is a game without its own headquarters? Help your children build their fortress. With the help of snow you can make a real castle. Remember that your result will be limited only by your imagination.
In addition to the usual tower or wall that protects, for example, from snowballs, you can even build your own, your own slide for skiing.
Make a snowman
But how to spend the winter without its faithful symbol and companion - a snowman? Usually they do this at the first snow, but you can build your hero at any opportunity.
You can also try yourself as a sculptor and replace your snowy friend with any other creation. By the way, after completion of work, it can even be painted. To do this, take gouache diluted with water and create.
Skate
In winter, many ice rinks open throughout the city.
There are open and closed, paid and free. But only one thing remains unchanged - a large number of happy people and a good mood.
Go skiing
Better than a winter walk in the forest can only be the same skiing. Your movement will become easier and more enjoyable. Therefore, you will have more energy to enjoy the scenery.
In addition, it is a great option to combine entertainment with sports.
Play tracker with the children
Fun should bring not only laughter and joy, but also benefit. So, for example, snowballs develop accuracy, and skating increases coordination of movements. Another good example is the game of trackers. Show the children footprints in the snow and tell them who left them. So you can better study the traces of birds and animals. And also play a real detective and watch the traces of specific people.
In addition to just watching the animals, you can also take care of them.
Finding food becomes more difficult at this time of the year, so instill a love of nature in your children and set up bird feeders with them.
Blow soap bubbles in the bitter cold
Another very creative way to surprise a child is bubbles. If they are allowed in the winter, then their effect increases significantly. With their help, you can show the children how the ice crust appears. It will be not only interesting, but also very beautiful.
Just get ready for the fact that the performance will be followed by questions about how it all happens. This will give you the opportunity to introduce your child to physics. At the same time, take some snow home and show how it turns into water.
Decorate the trees in the garden
On the eve of the New Year, you should not only hope for a miracle, but also create it yourself. After decorating the Christmas tree and rooms in the house, go outside. Collect the remaining toys, garlands and tinsel.
Make more snowflakes and start decorating the plants in the yard. Around will become much more beautiful, and the atmosphere will be filled with magic.
Gather a big party
All the games and fun presented are interesting in their own way, but everything can quickly get boring if you do it alone or together. Gather more friends and ordinary slides or snowball fights will become a big event. So you will have not only more emotions and impressions, but also topics for conversation with friends.
Stay indoors
Winter activities and fun with kids are great. But not always the weather outside the window allows you to have fun carefree no matter what. At such moments, it is still worth staying warm at home. Here you will find countless entertainment from board games to all sorts of creative processes.
If you still want to go outside, then dress warmly and enjoy a walk along the way to the theater, cinema or cafe.
