As I have said before, there is no such thing as bad weather. But now, with the second lockdown in force, it is even more important to make sure you are getting yourself outside! Being outside provides so many benefits to the body and mind, so now with your newfound skills in dressing yourself and your kids for the wintery weather, here are ten easy and simple ideas of what you can do with kids when you head outside.
1. Snow Painting
Collect your paintbrushes and paints and take them outside and get painting. Watercolours (and regular paints) work wonderfully on snow and ice. You can also use squirty or spray bottles with a food colouring mixture to make colourful snow. The best part of this is there is no clean up required!
2. Ice and Snow Play
Make use of those baking trays and ice cube containers and freeze some water, food colouring or anything else you want to add. I like to add other natural elements, like stones, pine needles and pine cones. Depending on the temperatures, use either your freezer or nature’s freezer by leaving them outside. If you add a piece of string while freezing, you can hang them up as decorations and eventually watch them melt. If the weather is still too cold for it to melt, then another fun option is to use stones or hammers to smash the ice. We like to add fruit, gummi bears or little toys that the kids have to rescue, by smashing (or licking, if it is my kids) the ice. You can also get out those summer sand toys and use them in the snow – Castle moulds make impressive snow palaces. If you can get your kids a kids size snow shovel, so they can get out and help you shovel the snow or can take it out with them when they visit a park for play.
3. Making Bird Feeders
February is National Bird Feeding Month, so make yourself a bird feeder to hang on your balcony or in your garden. A quick google search will find a large number of ways to make a homemade feeder. Here are my two favourites
- Coconut Oil Bird Feeder – You will need coconut oil and birdseed (2 tablespoons of oil to every cup of birdseed). Warm up the coconut oil and mix in the birdseed. Fill the mixture into cookie cutters (on baking paper). Use a straw or a pencil to make a hole in the top. Refrigerate (or put outside, if cold enough) once hard, add a piece of string and hang outside
- Orange Bird Feeder – Cut an orange in half and spoon out the fruit, leaving just the skin. Make four holes in the skin and tie string through the holes. Fill with birdseed. Hang in your garden or on your balcony.
4. Build A Snow Cave or Den
Get busy and work together to build a snow cave (if you have enough snow) or you can make a den (either inside or outside), add blankets and cushions and have yourself a tea party. Just be careful when it comes to safety and the snow caving in here.
5. Bubbles
Even though bubbles are often associated with summer, they are brilliant also in winter. If your child is old enough, encourage them to try and blow their own bubbles, this is a great way to develop the mouth muscles, supporting them with speech development. If it’s cold enough, those bubbles just may freeze creating beautiful frozen spheres.
6. Daytime walks
Head out for a stroll together, either close by or in the hills. Make it more exciting and enjoyable for the kids by taking sleds, so they can be dragged along, give them a hardy digital camera so they can take their own photos. Or a magnifying glass so they can search for signs of spring. You can always turn a walk around the block into a scavenger hunt, look out for numbers, birds or animal footprint, if you are near fields
7. Evening Walks
The walking fun doesn’t have to stop when the sun goes down. Make the walk into an evening adventure and take along torches, glowing armbands, glow sticks (sold in Jumbo and Obi), sparklers or head torches
8. Shadow play
When the sun shines breaks through, find a sunny place (either in the morning or late afternoon to allow for long shadows) and use some chalk to draw out shadow outlines. These are done best on pavements or on walls. Once an outline has been drawn, either by the kids or yourself, let the kids finish off the decoration, adding to it as they want.
9. Make A Love Potion
No fancy restaurants open for Valentine’s day dinner… get outside and get the kids involved and make your very own wintery love potion. You will need a big cooking pot, some measuring cups, some spoons for stirring some water, or snow if there is some on the ground and some bowls for serving. The ingredients are whatever you think might be a nice love potion mix, my recommendation is to add some nice spices, cinnamon or nutmeg, to give it a lovely smell.
10. Roast Marshmallows
A slight twist on the summer version of sausages on the fire. This can be done either at home if you can, or find an isolated fire pit in the forest and toast some marshmallows on the fire. If you have a thermos, take along some hot chocolate too!
Do you have great tips for encouraging outdoor play with young kids? We would love to hear them in the comments below.
