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Friday, January 22, 2016

Snow Day!

It looks like this mid-winter blog post is happening on a snow day for lots of children and parents! So I thought I would offer a few indoor activities to keep the children busy, and their imaginations active, to supplement the outdoor play in the cold and snow.

Winter Fun: Draw and Dance

After playing outside, draw a picture of all of the things you did: Did you make snow angels? Did you build something with the snow, such as snowballs, a snow fort, snow people? Did you sled ride or go down the hill on a saucer? Did you make footprints in the snow?

Once you have finished drawing about your outside adventures, find a space where you can dance about them! Some fun musical choices for accompaniment are Snowy Owl by Debbie Clement, Cozy Bug Twist by David Jack, and Frosty the Snowman.

Indoor Snowballs

Shower scrubbies make wonderful indoor snowballs!

I like to use items that I already have around the house for creative movement play. The shower scrubby pictured at right is one such item. I buy them in packs when I find them on sale, and scrubbies made from recycled plastic are often available.

Using one scrubby per child, put on some music and ask the child or children to try to throw it up in the air and catch it. See how many times they can do it in a row without dropping it. Now have them toss it back and forth to another child and do the same thing: How many times can you throw it to each other and catch it without dropping it?

Now try the same two activities above, but try to do them in time to the music. Feel and clap the beat first, and then try to toss the snowball to the beat. See how long they can do that without dropping it!

If you have access to a large number of scrubbies and you have a group of children, give each one a scrubby and put on some upbeat music. Ask them to do a snowball dance using the scrubby as a prop. At the end of the dance, they can all throw the scrubbies in the air at the same time to make a blizzard.

Dance a Blizzard!(the children in this photo are using home-made snowflakes, made by tying strips of netting together)

Make Snowflakes, then Dance and Freeze in Snowflake Shapes!

Cut out several snowflakes using computer-type white paper.

Put on some upbeat music and ask your child or children to dance about the falling snow.

Stop the music, hold up one of the snowflake shapes, and ask the children to make that snowflake shape with their whole body. Repeat several times, using all of the snowflakes one by one. When the music is finished, ask the children to freeze in their favorite snowflake shape to end the dance.