Winter Activities to Do With Your Children

Inside Activities:

• Build an indoor fort/tent/castle
• Homemade Snow Dough (click on link for directions)
• Write a family storybook
• Winter memory game (click on link for game card downloads)
• Make an IScarf for your IPODS, IPHONE’s etc.  (click on link for directions)
• Paper Plate Snowman  (click on link for directions)
• Bake together as a family
• Cereal Box Snowman (click on link for directions)
• Create your own outdoor winter birdfeeder (there are several variations to this project online)
• Dress Up Relay: Teams face off in this relay race to find out which one can dress and undress the fastest.
• Face Charades: Happy, sad, angry – guess which emotion kids are portraying in this charades inspired game.
• Dust off Candyland, Monopoly, Scrabble….pour some hot cider and let the fun begin!
• Snow Play: Fill your kitchen sink with snow.  Put mittens on your child, give them spoons, cups, and bowls to begin their indoor winter creations.
• Colored Snow Cubes (click on link for directions)
• Bathtub Painting: Put your preschooler in the bathub (no water) with washable finger paints.  The walls serve as the canvas and the clean up is a cinch!
• Beach Party!  Beat the winter blues by having a pretend indoor beach party in the living room or playroom.
• Absorbing Art Work (click on link for directions)
• Snow Swabs (click on link for directions)

Outdoor Activities:

• Build snow forts, snow angels or snowmen with freshly fallen snow!
• Use sand buckets, loaf pans, and empty milk cartons to enhance your snow fort building!
• Build a snow caterpillar
• Ice Maker: when temps drop below 32 degrees, blow bubbles and watch them freeze.
• Snow Graffiti – give kids spray bottles full of water that is tinted with food coloring and decorate white snow in your backyard.
• Play Tic-Tac-Snow in the snow!
• Frosty Toss: have a snowball throwing contest.  Make a target by creating a circle in the snow with colored water in a squirt bottle and see how many snowballs they can get inside the target
• Offer to help neighbors shovel
• Go on a hike/walk and look for animal tracks in the snow

Activities To Do In the Area:

• Kennedy Park: Sledding, snowshoeing, ice fishing and much more!  (Click on the link to be directed to their website)
• Sledding at American Legion, Fort Dodge, Iowa
• Roller Skating at Wheels of GYC, Gowrie, Iowa
• Checkout storytimes at your local libraries
• Seven Oaks: Snow tubing, skiing, & snowboarding (Click on the link to be directed to their website)
• Bowling: Family Bowling Center (Fort Dodge); Ridgewood Lanes (Fort Dodge)
• Catch a movie at Fort 8 Theatre, Fort Dodge or Humota Theatres, Humboldt, Iowa