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With winter rapidly approaching, cabin fever is sure to follow for everyone. Keeping everyone busy, and keeping them from sure insanity is not an easy task. There are many winter activities you can do with your children to give some relief to the ensuing cabin fever. Here are a few ideas:
Fun Winter Activities To Beat Cabin Fever
Holiday Party Planning
Kids love to be a part of the holiday action scene. They love planning. Let them help with the planning of menus, decorations, and invitations. This can keep them busy for hours. It can also be an opportunity to teach a little responsibility.
Crafts
You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to occupy kids with crafts. If you knit or crochet, this would be a good time to teach the kids that would like to learn. You can also do something as simple as making picture frames out of puzzle pieces. These can be used for holiday pictures. Most kids enjoy crafts of all sorts.
Holiday Baskets
Involve the entire family in assembling a basket to give to those in need. The Family Education website advises that you place useful items, such as holiday food, canned goods, fruit, toiletries, dried fruit, soup mixes, sugar, coffee, and tea. Charities also look for toys and clothing donations during the holiday season.
Baking
Baking is a traditional activity associated with the colder months. The holiday season usually means it is time to bake cookies, brownies, pies, cakes, gingerbread houses, and other delicious treats. Purchase sprinkles, candy, icing, and food colouring for the family members to decorate the cookies and gingerbread houses. You can conduct a contest and choose the best-decorated treat.
Indoor Games
Break out the board games when the weather turns cold. Other games that your family can play when indoors includes charades, card games, hide and seek, and dominoes. You can also mix up mittens and gloves and ask that your child makes matches.
Play, Play, Play
From board games to card games, keep those kids playing. Most kids and adults enjoy games of any sort. Even video game competitions are great. You could have prizes for winners. This works well with kids of all ages. Be sure to have some games suitable for younger children so they can get in on the fun too!
Indoor Scavenger Hunt
You can occupy kids for hours with indoor scavenger hunts. Make it even more interesting by adding clues for treasure or prizes with each item found. Kids love buried treasures. Some will enjoy pretending to be pirates on a hunt. Be creative!
Family Movie Night
This is an idea for adults and children of all ages. Rent or buy movies and set a specific day and time. Send the kids computer-printed invitations to movie night, or tickets to get in. Make sure the movie is appropriate for everyone attending. Let the kids help plan and prepare movie night snacks. Everyone will have fun!
Life Planning/Talking Night
Nowadays, too few parents really talk to their children. A life planning night is great to find out what is in your kid’s head. What are their goals in life? Help them plan and decide on attainable goals. This is a good time to talk about everything. Money planning or discussing bank accounts may be appropriate for older children. This time is good for whatever is on your or your children’s minds. Do this once a week to “catch up” with your children. This is good to do year-round, not just in the winter.
Get Outdoors
Just because it is wintertime, it doesn’t mean you have to stay indoors. Bundle up and go out and play with the kids. Build snowmen, build snow castles, or just have a good old-fashioned snowball fight. These are all winter activities you can enjoy with your children.
Fun in Snow
If the snow falls, the entire family can enjoy plenty of winter activities outdoors: ice skating, sledging, building snowmen, and making snow angels. While building the snowman, you can leave him headless and request your kids stand behind him for silly photo ops, suggests the Disney Family Fun website. Instead of a game of freeze tag, you can use snowballs and play snowball tag. If a person is hit with a snowball, he is frozen from play. You can also make ice and snow sculptures after a snowfall. Add colour to your masterpieces with food colouring.
Snow Forts
Kids love building forts, so use that mound of snow the snowplough pushed onto your yard to build a snow fort. Add more snow to the mound if you need to make it higher or wider, pack it down and start digging into the side of the mound. Once you have a big enough hole, begin to hollow out the inside until it’s big enough for the kids to sit in. Make sure to leave the walls about a foot thick so the fort won’t collapse.
Sledging
Sledging is the ultimate winter activity for kids. Find a snowy hill free of debris and obstacles. Don’t pick an icy spot. Make sure there is a large area at the bottom–away from roads–to allow the kids to stop safely. Use a sledge with runners or a plastic saucer sledge. Kidshealth.org suggests using bicycle helmets for protection. Let the kids spend a few hours happily wearing themselves out as they sledge down the hill and climb back up for another turn.
Snow Candy
While the kids are outside in their fort or building a snowman, melt some caramels or chocolate chips in a pan. You can also boil maple syrup or a mixture of 1 cup molasses and 1 cup brown sugar–as pioneer Laura Ingalls Wilder did to make snow candy when she was a child. Bring the hot mixture outside and have the kids use a wooden spoon to carefully drizzle designs on top of fresh, clean snow. By the time the pan is empty, the candy designs on the snow should be hardened enough to pick up and eat.
Too few people realise that children are only young for a short while. Enjoy playing with them and bonding with them while they are young. They are truly a blessing. Again, be creative, you can find many winter activities to do at home with your children. These are the things they are going to remember about you when they are older-when they are planning what to do with their children.
