Winter Activities for Preschoolers

There’s nothing like seeing children’s faces light up when they see snow! Whether creating a snowman, making a snow angel, or simply playing in their own winter wonderland, winter is the perfect time to engage your preschooler in a mixture of outdoor and indoor activities.

As the winter break approaches, this is an ideal time when parents generally have some downtime to help their children continue to learn when they are not in preschool. Planning activities that are challenging, encourage thinking and are fun will help your child when they return back to care in January.

Winter Teaching Tips

Whether your children are at home or in preschool, there are a few ways to incorporate early learning skills. Here are some preschool winter theme activities that SimplySmart Child Care Centre & Montessori educators teach that you can share in your daily routine:

  • Signs that winter is coming,
  • Changes in temperature and what the weather is like, comparing hot and cold
  • Sensory exploration and vocabulary related to snow and cold objects
  • How temperature in the winter is different in different parts of the world?

Winter Indoor Activities

Arts & Crafts

Creativity often comes out of children in the form of art. On days when it’s too cold to go outside and play or there are blizzard warnings, it’s nice to have a few preschool winter activities that are craft-related that can be created indoors to help develop their fine motor skills.

  • Sparkly playdough will keep children entertained and helps develop their creativity.
  • Having some pattern blocks on hand is a great way to work a child’s mind. (If they are winter-themed blocks, even better!)
  • You can set up your own sensory bins where your child can create their own snow globe. All you need is some fake snow, a small plastic jar and little toy figurines (You can purchase all of these items from the dollar store).
  • Use cotton balls and cotton swabs to create snowflakes on a window. So, your child doesn’t actually use the window itself, we would advise using some contract paper and painter’s tape to place on your window and then let your child do the exploring and creating.

Physical indoor preschool activities

Indoor physical activities can help your child develop their big muscles when they can’t explore outside due to weather.

  • Yoga stretches like downward dog, cobra pose, cat pose help build flexibility and improve emotional regulation and overall mood.
  • Practicing exercises like pushups, and mountain climbers help build strength in little children and enable parents to get in some physical activity as well.

Winter Outdoor Activities

At all of our SimplySmart preschool locations, we offer outdoor areas for your preschoolers to play.

If you want to encourage new types of outdoor play with your child, here are a few ways to incorporate winter activities that you can set up in your own backyard or at a park.

  • Snow Shoveling. Encourage and challenge your child to help you out with shoveling the snow from your driveway or backyard. You can pick up a child-size shovel so you can help teach them.
  • Build a snowman. We all love this one, right? You can encourage your child to try to create other sculptures of their own. Alternatively, they can even build their own snow fort.
  • Paint the snow. In a spray or pop bottle, add some food colouring and water and give to your child to make some creative designs in the snow.

Why Choose SimplySmart?

If you want to join a community created to help parents, we would like you to consider using SimplySmart Child Care Centre & Montessori for your child and family’s needs. Our daycare locations will be enrolling for the Universal childcare agreement, so, you can rest assured that you will get the benefit from the Ontario Childcare deal.

To learn more about our Play-Based or Montessori programs, please visit https://simplysmartchildcare.com/play-based-or-montessori/.

We have Daycare locations in many parts of the GTA, book a tour today!