Winter activities: ideas and inspirations to do with children

WINTER - If there was a season for mindfulness and slowing down, then this is the one.

Leading on from my last post, this week revolves around all things Winter and activities to do with children through the cooler and darker months. Having grown up across both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, I find Winter a very magical time, one where things slow down with the shorter days. In Europe, it showed me the magic the season has to offer with Christmas and all that jazz, and so I bring it in in bits and pieces were I can into the southern hemispheres winter. This time lends itself well to indoor activities hence quite a few of the activities I bring up revolve around the home. In saying that, nature and the outdoors still play a big part in our memories and moments through winter, the ones that take us inward filling our inner light (yep cheesy mama in spades here!), and I hope they do for you too. So without further ado, here are some of our favourite past-times for the cooler months.

Making playdough

Our family is a big lover of playdough and we have dabbled in all sorts of recipes from cold, which helps involve the children in the creation of playdough, to alternative flours, colourings, and lots more. One of our favourites is with activated charcoal as it seems to have a sparkly and mysterious graphite quality to it.

When it comes to recipes, our family favourite is still the recipe on the back of the cream of tartare you buy at the local shops, just with reduced salt and half the amount of cream of tartare to keep it soft for small hands. My little ones like to play with it while it is still warm, and they kneed the lavender or lemon oil drops into the playdough. After that anything goes, we have had sticks, sand, flowers, and dried tree sap join the play, as well as it becoming bogs for cars, scones, noodles, and eggs as well as arm casts and fossilised foot and face prints. We just have 2 rules, it stays at the table and we pack it away before we start something else.

Bushwalks

The cooler weather lends itself to bushwalks or nature walks much more than the heat of summer. Many of our native trees flower over winter, especially towards the end of the season and it is such a joy to spot the colours of blooms and which birds feed where and on what.

Feeding ducks and birds on walks

We have been lucky enough to live near water with all our children when they have been young. Where there is water there are ducks, and in some cases geese and swans too. We make a note to buy some oats especially for that weekly adventure to the water where we feed the ducks. In some places they are so tame that they will eat out of your hands nibbling at your skin. There has been the occasional dash for safety when confronted with a greedy goose or cranky swan, but nothing that we could not laugh off and enjoy telling the story to friends and family afterwards.

Creating an invitation to play

This is fun to set up when they are asleep in bed, a kitchen or home corner, with all the usual things in miniature, or a story scape with cloths and toys and little treasures collected on nature walks or from the garden to spark their little hands and minds into action – check out small world play, Steiner inspired nature tables and story scenes.

Baking bread

This is something we picked up at playgroup and we occasionally do at home, especially during the cooler months where the heat from the oven is a welcome companion. The little ones can help from the very start with getting the dough mixed and leaving it to rise, but the best time is when we do the last kneed and shaping of each ones lump of dough before it goes in the oven. There are plenty of simple recipes online to choose from and try out till you find the one that your family enjoys the most for lunch or afternoon tea.

Leaf boat races

Now this can be a leaf, a stick, bark, or a blade of grass. We find that our native gum leaves lend themselves well to flowing in currents, so that is what we usually use. When it rains it is often heavy rain, so we get that high-volume water coming down the streets and off pathways giving plenty of opportunity to race leaves all the way to the drain. It has often turned into creating obstacles, such as bridges from grass roots and rocks to flow around, to deconstructing naturally occurring obstructions from whatever the water has collected. More often than not my children will get absolutely soaked as puddle play and rain dance dashes become part of it and once they are cold and wet they come in for a warm bath, hot coco and a story snuggled up together.

Inukshuk making

These little rock or stone towers (some resembling human form) are a joy to make balancing the rocks on each other. It is quite a focused activity and they have a special quality to them. With their history serving many purposes to assist people in harsh environments, it is said that in a way, most importantly they were used to indicate to travellers that they weren’t alone and that someone had previously stood where they stand – a point of connection to others when one feels alone. Just like the rainbows in the windows for children to find during lockdown, an inukshuk in a front garden can give a point of connection from your family to those who pass by your home and spot your little, or not so little stone people.

Celebrating winter

Winter is a special time especially with Christmas in the northern hemisphere, but here in the southern hemisphere that magic can sometimes be lost without a significant event to wrap itself around. This is why I make a point of celebrating or at least marking the winter solstice, with a campfire and or candlelit home evening (sometimes this is an ongoing theme for weeks or just the one event). All my children have been fascinated by the glow of fire and candles – knowing when you will do it means you can have a whole day or two preparing with gathering the wood, making the fire pit, preparing the food (bread and sausages, soup in a mug, warm quiche and baked pears – definitely comfort food time), which all ads to the special nature and reverence of the experience. We always found our children fell asleep watching the fire either at the pit when we were able to, or the candles at home. For the candles, we fill jars and other vesicles with moist sand as it catches the spilling wax and avoids any additional fire hazard creation which act as small lanterns to have around the home and garden. I also like to make sure the lights are soft indoors, so it is less jarring when transitioning between firelight and home for bed.

Watching night lights

In the evening if you have a high vantage point either from your own window, or up a hill somewhere (we would sometimes drive up to the highest point behind our home), park the pram or car and watch the car lights streaming by and the different hues of house lights. We always would end up wondering what everyone else was doing at home.

Cubby houses under the table… or anywhere else

If you have flat sheets for your bed you can throw one or more of them over a table or chairs. We have hung them off tall shelves and draped them further down over furniture - anywhere you can create a little nook. Chuck some blankets and pillows underneath, a lamp/torch and my kids love to get a CD player with their favourite audiobooks that they listen to or just play house.

There is a lot more where this came from but I thought a select few would get your cogs turning on what winter-inspired nature and home activities to do with your little people. I’ll be back with springs inspirations next time. In the meantime for those of you going into winter or having come out the other end, I hope you enjoy the reflections and memories that you had or want to make as that is where I always find my little sparks of magic grow with my gaggle of kidlets.

All the best to all you beautiful big people,

MaMa’T

#natureplay #natureactivities #kidsinnature #winteractivities #winteractivitieswithkids