Winter Activities for the Classroom

Winter is here! Those long warm summer and beautiful crisp autumn days are long gone, only to be replaced by the cold weather blues, freezing rain, and snowstorms which will undoubtedly limit outdoor play. Not knowing which days can include outdoor activities and which ones will freeze your kids’ little tootsies off can easily put a dent in lesson plans. You know how it goes, you have planned for some fun outdoor activities and instead are dealing with a foot of snow!  

This time of year, it is always best to have a back-up plan for outdoor play.  Unfortunately, you may not have a lot of time to quickly come up with an indoor activity that helps your children get the wiggles out. To ensure you are prepared, create a classroom inclement weather box.  Fill it with gross motor activities and supplies to use when the weather does not permit outdoor play. 

Below are some quick and easy indoor activities to replace outdoor play: 

• Sort It, Clean It: Invite the children to help you sort the classroom toy baskets.  

• Classroom Treasure Hunts: Create treasure hunts by hiding items around the room.  Whether it is hidden alphabet letters, jungle animals, or pretend gold coins, children love finding hidden objects.  

• Classroom Obstacle Course:  Set up an obstacle course in your classroom!  Invite the children to take turns completing the obstacle course. 

• Freeze Dance:   Play music and invite the children to dance.  Turn the music off and direct the children to freeze.  This is a great activity to practice listening skills. 

• Simon Says: Get the children moving with a game of Simon Says. 

• Pompom Mazes: Create several different mazes using masking tape on butcher paper.  Place the butcher paper mazes on the floor.  Provide each child a straw and pompom.  Encourage the children to complete the maze by blowing the pompom using the straw. 

• Roll It, Do It:  Prior to the activity create an action dice by covering a small cardboard box with paper.  On each side of the dice write an action such as: stomp and roar like a dino, hop like a frog, etc.  Invite the children to sit in a circle each taking a turn to roll the dice and then complete the action. 

• Cars & Ramps:   Assist the children to create ramps with cardboard and blocks and then see which vehicles travel the farthest down the ramp. 
• Ring Toss:  Invite the children to take turns to play ring toss games.

• Quiet Ball:  Invite the children to sit in a circle.  The first player passes the nerf ball to another child.  The child that catches the ball says one think they like about the child that threw the ball.   Continue playing so that each child receives several compliments.