Sabin, Davis, Hetrick, Anderegg, Macalady, Walker, Darling and Katers

“To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the snow.”

— Aristotle

Dashing around for 20- minutes or holding hands and making your own path in a snowy yard is a welcome break for children and adults in winter. The fun makes the hassle of bundling worth it.

Quick and easy

One simple activity is making snow faces on tree trunks. Even if snow doesn’t pack well preschool children can press hands full of snow on trees to sketch eyes, nose, ears, and smiles. They also make good snowball targets. If the snow doesn’t pack well take a plastic tub of snow into the house for 20 minutes to increase the temperature and make the snow packable. Hula hoops placed flat in the snow or leaned against a tree are also good targets for snowball toss games.

Children can make snowballs and turn them into small snowmen villages with houses, cars, dogs, trees, flowers, mountains, and rivers. Fill up some spray bottles with water and a little food coloring. The children can add color to their villages scenes. They can make decorations or modern art paintings with stripes and geometric shapes around the back yard. You can also take cake pans packed with snow into the house and children can paint with water colors and small paint brushes. They will blend together and make beautiful art as they melt.

Camera action

You can bring a camera outside and take close ups of icicles and tree branches. Then go inside and draw with pencils on white paper or chalk on black paper.

Turn a cardboard box into a sled. Break it into a rectangle shape and duct tape the sled. If there are no long hills in your yard, make one from a pile in your yard. Young children don’t need much of a decline. You can take smart phone videos of children sledding and running around for relatives who are far away. Teens will show you how to send them.

Snow maze

Turn your yard into a snow maze. Stomp down lanes of snow with dead ends. Kids can blow bubbles and let one freeze on a wand. Can they carry it through the maze before it breaks? The maze might end at a snow house safely made out of snow balls and filled with snow furniture.

Almost any game like tag, baseball, tennis, and catch played in the summer can be played in the winter for a short time before heading inside for hot chocolate

For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and Google wnmufm.org/Learning Through the seasons live on Tuesdays at 4:30 during the NPR news break and Saturdays at 8:30 a.m., plus pod casts on the station’s web site.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Grandparents Teach, Too is a non-profit organization of elementary and preschool teachers from Marquette, Michigan. The writers include: Jan Sabin, Mary Davis, Jean Hetrick, Cheryl Anderegg, Esther Macalady, Colleen Walker, Fran Darling, and Iris Katers. Their mission since 2009 is to help parents, grandparents, and other caregivers of young children provide fun activities to help prepare young children for school and a life long love of learning. They are supported by Great Start, Parent Awareness of Michigan, the U.P. Association for the Education of Young Children, Northern Michigan School of Education, the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum and the Northern Michigan University Center for Economic Education.