Winter Fun

The Snowy Day written by Ezra Jack Keats tells the story of one little boy’s adventures during the day it snowed in his neighborhood. Preschoolers and young school age children will enjoy the story, although you may need to plan your activities ahead of time. It doesn’t snow very often in Kern County so many children have no experience with what it is like. Try these simple activities to make a snowy winter day more meaningful to the kids in your care:

Fill your sand or water table with finely crushed ice. The ice can be purchased very inexpensively from one of our local ice plants. Place the table outside and dress the kids warmly before sending them to play. You can use many of your sand and water toys for this activity or home made things work just as well. Some suggestions:

    Wooden spoons
    Plastic containers
    Styrofoam cups

Keeping out the cold!

When the going gets cold, the cold get going…to wrap up in warm winter clothes. Look through a clothing catalog with children and have them identify the items that would be best to wear outside in winter and why. The children can practice cutting by choosing pictures of winter clothes for catalogs and then creating a winter clothes collage by gluing the pictures to a large sheet of paper.

A Snowy Day Song

    (sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You know It”)

    When it’s cold outside in winter, we wear [hats]
    When it’s cold outside in winter, we wear [hats].
    In a nippy winter storm we wear clothes to keep us warm!
    When it’s cold outside in winter, we wear [hats].

    [substitute a different cold winter item every time you sing the song.]

Ice & Rock Salt

You’ll need blocks of ice (use empty containers like recycled plastic milk jugs to freeze water the night before), rock salt, colored water and eyedroppers. Place the blocks of ice in an empty sand or water table. Sprinkle the rock salt on top of the ice. The rock salt will make holes in the ice! Allow the children to drip drop colored water onto the ice and into the holes!

Thank you to Lisa Albert from the EPTSS Division for this month's activity!

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