Step Ahead Teacher with children

Winter Activity Ideas

A few ideas from Step Ahead to combat that mid-winter boredom and utilise the cold for some quality time and play with your children.

With daylight savings ending and colder mornings and evenings falling upon us, everyone is starting to think about winter. The idea of winter always conjures up feelings of cosy fireplaces, the smell

of a casserole cooking in the hot pot and fluffy slippers!! For families with pre-school children it can conjure up other feelings. Weekend upon weekend of rainy days and not spending so much time outside can send parents to despair. But fear not…here are some great indoor ideas that children can use their wonderful imaginations and creative skills with for hours of fun.


 

  • Cooking: Google children’s recipes – there are hundreds out there. Depending on the age and ability of your pre-schooler, you can choose ones that require the oven, stove top, just the microwave or no actual cooking at all. Be prepared to get a bit messy – remember its all good fun and mess can always be cleaned up with the help of your little cook.

  • Detergent box blocks: Save up your detergent cardboard boxes. Clean them out and tape some of them up. Get your children to decorate them with coloured or patterned cover seal or let the paints flow with your child’s creative flare in painting them. Once dry, they make amazing huge building blocks which if your children are anything like mine love towering up high and knocking down. The boxes that you leave untapped make great garages and stations for trains.

  • Dress ups: Tried and true. Just delve in to your wardrobe and pull out some old clothes, shoes, scarves and ties. Your children’s imagination will take care of the rest!

  • Wet day obstacle courses: Create some wonderful obstacles courses in your lounge, rumpus room, garage, hallway or bedroom. Crawl through dining chairs, jump from cushion to cushion, tie a cord between 2 chairs so they have slip under it, make a tunnel out of chairs, tie some balloons under the coffee table so they have to crawl through them, roll up a towel to use as a balancing beam.

  • Newspaper fun: Just put some music on and go crazy ripping it up. You can turn this in to a game of statues with the stop start scenario or even use all the ripped paper for paper mache or to fill up a plastic bag and use as a bashing bag!

Don’t forget to get outside as well… Just because it’s raining doesn’t mean you can’t wrap your child up in good clothing and let them feel the rain on their face! Puddles create some great childhood memories too.