Indoor Snow Play

FrozenI’m posting a few posts from my former blog — sharing some winter activities that my kids loved and might help you with the cabin fever winter often brings. This activity seemed particularly timely, especially if you’ve experienced the “polar vortex”  like we have. Here in the Chicago area, we’ve had many days with temperatures in the -11 to -20 degree range and wind chills far, far lower. This is a perfect activity for days like that! 

{From January of 2011 – loved seeing how little my oldest two were when I posted this!}

Last week was an exciting one here in the Chicagoland area. We had ourselves a full-fledged blizzard!

Fortunately, we didn’t have to go anywhere. In fact, our county was declared a civil emergency, and people were told not to drive anywhere if at all possible! Just about everything was shut down, and we were jumping for joy upon hearing the news that Daddy got a day off to spend with us … and the snowblower!

What an incredible event!

Snow was falling fast and furious, and the winds were relentless. As a result, I didn’t get a chance to snap any photos during the blizzard. But I still wanted to post in honor of last week’s historical snow day!

Watching the snow spill from the sky was breathtaking! It was beautiful and delightful all at the same time. There’s something about the way that pure white snow covers all that is dirty and gray and lifeless — leaves me without words.

Once things calmed down a bit, we played outside, but in all honesty, I was afraid I would lose the kids in the snowdrifts!

The next day, the kids wanted to go out and play in the snow again, but with colder temperatures we decided to bring the snow to us!

We had an indoor snow play day!

Indoor Snow Play

Creating your own indoor snow play day is incredibly easy, and you can let your imagination run wild with all the activities you can do.

We kept it simple. For our indoor snow play, we used

• an empty, under-the-bed, plastic storage box,
• toys from around the house, and
• SNOW!

I shoveled snow into our storage container, spread out a splat mat on the kitchen floor, gathered lots of toys and tools (cups, spoons, sand toys, toy figurines, etc.), prepared lots of extra towels and rags, and let the kids get to work!

Talk about using your senses! This is a perfect activity for sensory exploration — taste, feel, smell, look!

This is also a perfect investigative activity for kids to explore temperature. Even as little ones, the kids could observe the effect heat had on snow and could test out how quickly the snow melted when it was in the box with the rest of the snow or out of the box in a much smaller pile. We even put some snow in the fridge to compare how quickly it melted in a ‘little bit colder’ environment.

When their hands got cold, the kids slipped on their mittens and were able to continue creating imagining, and building!

…and me?! I was thankful for an hour of attention-grabbing snow fun!

Any age can have a blast with indoor snow play, from the baby on up!

{2014 update: Why not turn up the Frozen music while you play in the snow? Olaf’s “In Summer” song just might be the perfect choice for your indoor snow play!}

Question for You:

What other snow activities does your family enjoy?