As we take on another New England winter, I start planning activities to keep my cooped up kids entertained. I love sensory activities that help keep them engaged while they learn. Here are our favorite winter-themed sensory activities your kids will love.
1. Frozen Animals
This is my kids favorite activity. It is really simple, but takes a bit of planning ahead. Just take a plastic container and fill it half way with water.
Place small plastic toys inside. I like to use this TOOB of sea creatures to keep with the theme, but you can use whatever you have on hand.
Place in the freezer for at least three hours.
Once that is frozen, fill the rest of the plastic container with water and put another layer of toys. That way, the toys will be frozen throughout the ice cube and not just on the bottom.
Place back in freezer and allow to fully freeze. I usually prep this the night before.
Once the whole container is totally frozen, I pop the giant ice cube into the tub and let the kids squirt warm water on the ice.
They love melting the ice and “rescuing” the animals inside. They can also experiment with putting salt on the cube and seeing how it eats through the ice.
There are endless themes you can do, such as rescuing Star Wars character from carbonite or Frozen toys that were caught in Elsa’s magic. If I am short on time, I just dump all the toys in a container and freeze it all at once.
2. Frozen Treasure
This idea came from Tinkergarten, which offers outdoor classes for children. It was a messy one to make, but the kids loved it.
Just fill a water balloon with water and put a drop of food coloring inside. This is actually harder than it sounds. A couple of my balloons popped and exploded colored water everywhere, so if you have a slop sink, use it.
Once all of your balloons are filled, put them in a baking dish and place in the freezer. It will take a couple of hours for them to freeze.
Once they are fully frozen, cut the balloon part off and you will be left with a pretty colored ball of ice.
Hide the balloons around the yard for your kids to find like an Easter egg hunt. I told my kids that Elsa had left magical ice gems around the yard for them to find. Let them explore and find them on their own or leave clues and make a treasure hunt out of it.
3. Paint snow
This is another really simple activity that kids love. Just take condiment bottles and fill with water.
Add a few drops of food coloring into each bottles and send them out to make a masterpiece.
Kids love squirting the colored water all over the snow. My kids will literally do this for hours.
That is my list of the best winter-themed sensory activities your kids will love. Try it them out and let me know how it goes! I will update this list as we find more activities to add to the list.
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