Today, I would like to share with you some at home winter activities we did during my son’s toddler and preschool years. This a very busy time with a little one’s high energy. I hope that you are able to enjoy some of these with your family as well. Feel free to also check out my Pinterest page as well for more at home winter activities HERE.
Here are some fun ideas we did, and I have to admit it has been fun going through these old photos as well!
Make a Pretend Garage Mechanic Shop
When my son was four, we set up a pretend garage mechanic shop in his closet. His idea! Who would have known this would be so much fun! He would write down the cars and what was wrong with them then he would fix them with his pretend tools!
Get a STEM Club Monthly Subscription
We did the Amazon STEM club during my son’s preschool years and then the monthly Kiwi Crates. It was always fun to get a new one in the mail to put together! KiwiCo also has their Panda Crate and Koala Crate for this age. These would take hours to put together during those long winter months, so they were great to have! I love any learning toy that teaches problem solving and critical thinking.
Play With STEM Toys
A lot of parents get tired of the clutter of toys. I would highly encourage you that the next time you buy a toy for your child that it is STEM toy. These are awesome for learning. I don’t think of these as clutter at all. I have really appreciated toys that promote learning and innovative thinking. To me, these are definitely not clutter.
Make Your Own Instant Snow
Start Playing With Legos
There isn’t really an age to begin playing with Legos. Just start! My son really started playing with Legos at the age of 4 as you can see in the below picture. These are some Legos he built then. My husband also loves playing with Legos as well, so they spent hours doing this over those long winter months. At this time, we had his Legos organized by color. He has continued to love it over the years so much! Check out my article on Legoland if you are interested in visiting there!
Host a Cookie Decorating Party
This was easy to do! We just invited my son’s cousins and friends at preschool and made the sugar cookies in advance. When the kids showed up, all they had to do was decorate the cookies and bag them up! They also looked so adorable in their mini hats! This was a fun memory!
Make Your Own Pretend Restaurant
We made a sign for our restaurant and everything. It’s always fun eating pretend food all day, right?! I brought out my muffin pan as well to make it feel more real with playdoh muffins.
Make a Snow Sensory Bin for Painting
There were days when it was too icy to play outside, so we brought the snow inside our garage for painting! This was a lot of fun to do. Kids will just keep asking to play outside, and they don’t always understand that it is too icy to play outside. This solves that problem right away.
Make a Corn Sensory Bin With Farm Animals
This fun idea came to me since my son loved going to the local farm to play in their corn! I thought I could do that at home, so I just put some corn in a bin and some farm animals and toys from Tractor Supply. It was a fun activity to do in the basement and on our patio!
Set Up an Inflatable Bouncy House In Your Basement!
I must admit I questioned this while making this purchase, but I was so glad I did since he played in his inflatable bouncy house for hours and hours during those long winter months when it was too icy or rainy to go outside. We would throw the ball back and forth in the bouncy house as well, and this was definitely one of our favorite activities during those long winter months!
Do a Giant Coloring
There were days when we would sit together and color ALL Day! Enjoy all the coloring and fun together. Michaels also sells these fun life-size coloring projects that will last for days!
Make Your Own Pretend Racecar To Push Around the House
Good workout for this one! I had fun pushing my son around the house with this one.
Decorate your door together.
You can find these type of doorman decorating kits at Michaels, one of my favorite stores for crafts!
Make Homemade Peppermint Playdoh
Homemade playdoh is so much better than playdoh bought at the store, and it’s great for gifts for the cousins as well! I enjoyed playing with it as well.
Make special pancakes!
We have done lots of special pancakes over the years. They are always special around the holidays. They don’t always look the neatest, but that is the fun in making them!
Go On Stuffed Animal Walks
This was a common activity for us, and it was always fun!
Music Time Together
This has always been a priority for us even now. You can spend hours and hours playing music together even if it is with fake instruments!
Snow Activities
There are so many fun winter activities to do at home with snow from making snow angels to making igloos, shoveling, making snow angels, and painting snow!
Make lots of forts!
Forts come in all shapes and sizes. We have made plenty throughout the years.
Encourage Make Believe/Imaginative Play
I ended up making four costume bins for my son since he loved dressing up so much in various costumes. I would also save his non-scary Halloween costumes and put them in the dress up bin as well for more fun imaginative play.
Make Your Own Homemade Ornaments
We made our own homemade gingerbread ornaments at this time, and we loved it! We still have them to put on the tree, and they still smell great! There have been other ornaments we have made as well throughout the years using popsicle sticks, glitter, beads, other crafting materials, and Legos.
Have Fun Baking Together
Train Fun
We always enjoy playing for hours with trains. We would also go on a local train ride each winter for their Santa train ride.
Craft it Up!
We really enjoyed the spiral art maker! It was definitely messy, so I recommend doing this in your basement or garage. We have lots of white furniture, so I can tell you nothing got ruined in all of our craft making times! We also had fun with sand art, clay, stickers, markers/crayons, and lots of glitter of course. Use your basement or garage if you are worried. We visited the Crayola Factory as well a few times over the winter months. More on the Crayola Factory in another article!
Enjoy Those Riding Toys and Balls Even In the Winter
We had a toy tractor that was given to us as a wonderful gift from my in-laws and a toy jeep that was given to us as well. You can enjoy these riding toys in the winter all bundled up as well. Just don’t go out on ice obviously. If you have room in your basement, the kids can ride them down there as well! They are a lot of fun for kids. Also, don’t feel like you can’t bring out the balls in the winter! Just bundle up!
Make Fun Snacks Together!
Play Board Games
Work On Writing Letters, Shapes, and Name
At age four, I taught my son his letters, shapes, our address, and his name plus we started reading our phonics books with the Reading Raceway program and slowly writing sentences after I modeled writing it for him! It was so much fun teaching him during his preschool years. He learned very quickly and was easy to teach.