Cold Weather Activities For Children

I just read about a fun winter activity to do with your grandchildren—track the temperature where you live. The idea comes from Rebecca Cohen, founder of Rebecca Plants, who suggested this activity in her newsletter, Learn Outside.

Rebecca’s mission is to encourage families to spend time outside everyday for your own well-being and the well-being of the kids in your life. Last year she met a personal goal of spending 365 days outside with her family. She wrote about the benefits in her new book, 15 Fifteen Minutes Outside: 365 Ways to Get Out of the House and Connect with Your Kids.

Here are Rebecca’s tips and more cold weather activities to enjoy this winter:

• Use a digital outdoor thermometer because it’s easy to read.
• Have your grandchildren go outside and guess the temperature so they can start associating what it feels like when they see the temperature reading.
• Correspond with a family in another location and share your trends and what you are doing outside.
• Freeze water. If it’s cold enough, leave it out overnight in different containers to make different shapes and then use them as building blocks.
• Put a thermometer on a sunny windowsill. If your temperatures are 50 degrees and above, you can plant seeds in cups and grow vegetables.
• Hang a bird feeder outside within view from a window. Learn about the birds that are coming and going.
• Plant pansies. They do well in a moderate climate all winter.
• Collect pine cones for decorations, fire starters, wreaths, and to study.
• Take a walk and look for animal tracks.
• Look at winter trees and see if you can guess what they are without their leaves.
• Look for winter plants to look up later and study.