Winter
Winter activity ideas for kids.
Winter is the indoor season, so this is where the longer projects and the cosy activities live — building, making, baking, torch games and anything that suits a dark afternoon.
Ice is the seasonal gift. Freezing small toys into a tub of water and letting a child rescue them with warm water and a spoon is one of the most reliably absorbing activities on this site, and it costs nothing.
Cold-weather outdoor play still counts and is worth the effort of the coats. Ten minutes out changes the mood of a whole afternoon indoors.
Activities
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Draw Round Their Hand and Keep It
One sheet, once a year: their hand, their height, and three things they can do now that they could not last year.
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Spooky Shadow Puppets
Cut a bat and a cat from card, tape them to straws, and put on a show against the wall with a torch.
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A Countdown Chain
One paper loop per day, torn off each morning. It makes waiting visible, which is what small children need.
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Print Hearts With a Cardboard Tube
Squash a kitchen roll tube into a heart shape and use it as a stamp. One tube makes forty hearts.
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The First Cold Morning
A seasonal story about the morning you can suddenly see your own breath.
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Winter Play When It Is Too Cold to Go Out
Ice, torches, dens and paper snowflakes. The four things that reliably fill a dark afternoon.
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Noisy Shakers and a Jar of Good Things
One loud activity and one quiet one. Make shakers for the countdown, and a jar to look back at next year.