Category: Winter

When we think about teaching our children about wildlife and nature, we often think of the spring and summer when everything is blooming, but winter is also a great time to teach your children about the wildlife around them. This is a great time to teach your children about migration and hibernation. Whether you’re looking for activities that focus on arts and crafts, role-playing, science, or exploring outside, we have some great ideas for you!

Movement & Role-Playing

Animal Yoga: Pretend to be different winter animals – stretch like a deer, waddle like a penguin, curl up like a bear. You can create your own animal ideas or find a practice online!

Hibernation Game: If you’re looking for a new twist on a freeze game, the hibernation game is perfect! Use carpet squares or pillows; when the music stops, have your littles curl up like a hibernating animal on a square.

Animal Movement Acting: If your little one loves different animals, acting out different animals can be a lot of fun! Have them act out any animal they want or animals doing specific winter activities like birds migrating south, skunks finding dens, or squirrels gathering nuts. 

Science & Literacy

Winter Animal Books: Read stories like Bear Snores On or Arctic Animals to learn about animals that thrive in winter climates or what animals that don’t love the snow do during the cold winter season.

Animal Track Puzzles/Matching: Find a printout online or create your own animal track matching game! You can use tracks that your child might find in your area or animals from all over the world!

“Do I Hibernate?” Game: Look at animal pictures and guess if they sleep all winter. You can use this game to explain to your child what hibernation is and why some animals hibernate in the winter!

Outdoor Exploration

Nature Journaling: Go outside with a notebook and some colored pencils. Have your little ones draw or write about the sounds, smells, and sights in nature. You can also find small items they can glue or tape into their journal, like fallen leaves or feathers.

Look for Tracks: If you are outside on a snowy day, try to find some animal footprints in the snow. You and your family can spend some time trying to identify the types of tracks you find!

Feed the Birds: Watching birds in the winter is a great way to continue engaging with nature and wildlife. You can make one with your little one using a pinecone for simple viewing or spend some time picking out a fancy one with your family!

Arts & Crafts

Paper Plate Animals: If you have some extra paper plates lying around from the holidays, you can use them to make animal faces like walruses, owls, or penguins! You can add cotton balls, construction paper, and googly eyes for extra dimension.

Footprint Art: Use paint and animal-shaped stamps (or even their own hands/feet) to create tracks in “snow” (white paper). You can cut animal shapes into items like potatoes or sponges to create stamps.

Migration Maps: If you want to teach your children about migration, you can print out a map and have them use different colored markers to draw migration lines for different types of birds! This is a great activity to pair with a book or video about migration.

While winter is a beautiful season we often find ourselves enjoying it from inside with our littles, except when there’s snow to play in! Snow is so much fun to enjoy with children but it’s not the only thing that makes winter special! There are ways you can enjoy spending time outside with your family in the winter even when there’s no snow in sight! In this blog, we’ll give you some ideas for fun activities that can help you get outside and enjoy the winter season even when there’s no snow on the ground.

Winter Scavenger Hunt

You can find a ton of resources online or you can create your own scavenger hunt that is tailored to the area that you live in! This is a great opportunity to learn about nature and pairs well with a book about what happens during the change in seasons.

Search for Animal Tracks

This is another activity that pairs well with a book! Choose an animal that you know is prevalent in your area. Find a book to read about that animal with your littles then head outside to their local habitat to try and find their tracks!

Bark Rubbings

If you have an artistic child bark rubbing is a fun outdoor activity! All you need is paper and some crayons. Let your child find a tree with interesting bark and then have them place the paper on the bark and rub it with their crayon, leaving a beautiful imprint of the bark’s pattern!

Natural Bird Feeders

If you don’t have any bird feeders in your yard, making some can be a fun activity that gives you an opportunity to talk to your littles about nature! You can make simple natural bird feeders from pinecones covered in peanut butter and bird seed. Hang them up near a window so your family can have a good view of the birds that stop by!

Frozen Bubbles

This is the perfect activity for a very cold day when you need your littles to spend some time outside! Bubbles are a favorite among preschoolers and they can be even more magical in the winter! Pick a cold day and head outside with your bubble wand. Show your littles that when they start blowing bubbles the bubbles start to freeze!

Outdoor Obstacle Course

This is great for days when there is now snow or ice on the ground. Set up various obstacle courses using whatever you have! You can use cones, twigs, chalk, or anything else you can find to create fun obstacle courses for your littles to follow. Keeping your littles moving while they’re outside in the cold will help keep them warmer and having more fun!

Whether it’s too cold to go outside or not cold enough and you’re trying to create some winter magic in your living room, winter-themed songs are the perfect activity for you and your littles! Pick a wintery song and let your littles sing, wiggle, and dance to the music! In this blog, we’ve picked out five fun songs that your preschooler can sing and dance along to while celebrating the winter season!

Winter Freeze Dance

Sing along and learn with The Kiboomers Winter Freeze Dance song! Get ready to skate, flutter, wiggle, and dance! All your littles have to do is dance when the music plays, and freeze when it stops! This activity also helps your preschooler develop motor skills, listening skills, and social-emotional skills.

I Live Inside A Snowglobe

Laurie Berkner is living a wintery life – inside a magical snowglobe! Shake it up with her and her snowglobe friends – a mouse, a kangaroo, and a monster. Shake, stomp, jump, and roar together!

Wintertime Is Here

Sing along and learn with The Kiboomers preschool songs & nursery rhymes! Here is a great song for the winter season. The lyrics are included in the caption of the video if you need to learn them ahead of time!

Snowflake Song

“Snowflakes” is a fun activity song where children sing, dance, and play along as they explore a snowy winter wonderland. Music combined with movement makes learning about the seasons fun for kids. Music for kids makes learning fun and exciting!

Polar Bear Pokey Song

Join the Fun with the Polar Bear Hokey Pokey! Watch as these adorable kids put their paws in and shake it all about. This catchy song will have you dancing and singing along in no time. Don’t miss out on the fun – subscribe now to The Kiboomers Kids Songs!