Winter can be a challenging time for parents. Cabin fever may be taking hold, families are faced with snow-days, and we’re all yearning for warmer weather so we can get outside. Because we’re all indoors, this is a great time to take advantage of wonderful learning opportunities that will keep your children busy and build fun family time too.
Below are suggestions for you to explore during these cold weather months:
Read a good book
The snow is falling outside, so it’s a great time to grab a blanket, curl up with your kids and dive into an engrossing story. Read aloud or silently, but set aside time for literary adventures. You can find age-appropriate suggestions for recommended reading in our previous articles: Great Children's Books for the Early Years and Great Books for Older Children.
Write and illustrate a story
Gather the family and as a group, write a story, one sentence at a time. Toss around story line suggestions with each other and edit as you go. Neatly transcribe the finished tale into a fresh notebook or blank book, making space for the artists in your family to create illustrations. The aspiring author in your family will be thrilled! Not only is this a fun activity, but you’ll be helping to build vocabulary, stretching knowledge of ideas, and giving your child a sense of how sentences build larger structures, reinforcing an understanding of orderly sequence, cause and effect, and spelling.
Create a backyard weather station
Even on cold, wintry days, your children can enjoy learning about weather, nature, science and record keeping.
Start with a journal to record daily readings and other data. All you’ll need is a thermometer to record temperatures, a rain gauge to measure rainfall or snow fall, a weather vane to record wind direction, an anemometer to measure wind speed and for older kids, a barometer to measure atmospheric pressure and a hygrometer to measure humidity. These simple weather tools can be purchased at your local hardware store or you can make many of them using common materials you may already have on hand. Scientific observation, record-keeping and hands-on research made fun!
Play chess or other strategy games
It’s never too early to teach your child to play chess or another brain-stretching strategy play. The game promotes forward thinking and planning, cause and effect, accepting consequences and patience.
Take advantage of the snow to learn about area wild animals
When the ground is freshly covered with snow, bundle up the kids, grab a digital camera and head outside. You’re likely to find animal tracks in your backyard and in nearby wooded areas as well. Use the camera to capture images of the tracks, and then when you get back home, upload the photos to a computer. From those images your child can research and identify which animal made those imprints. Is it a nocturnal animal? Where do they live? What do they eat? Your children can have lots of fun examining and piecing together the “clues” left behind by local critters.
Look up and explore the night skies
Gazing up at the starry sky is mesmerizing and there’s so much to learn on a clear night. Young children can look for landmarks, such as the moon and constellations. You can point out the moon and explain why it changes shape.You can share the legends associated with constellations. You can also explain the difference between a star and a planet. In terms they’ll understand, a star has its own flashlight and a planet works more like a mirror and reflects the light from the sun. Share with your children the names of the week that are named after the various planets, which is the brightest, the closest, and the farthest.
Teens and older children will enjoy searching the sky with a telescope or a pair of binoculars. They can spot the different colors, determine whether they’re looking at stars or planets and you can point out to them that the light that they’re seeing probably began its journey millions of years ago!
Get into the kitchen
Cooking with your children is educational on so many levels. Reading, science, math, nutrition, following directions, cleanliness and hygiene all followed by a yummy treat that they made themselves, what could be better! Cooking involves reading a recipe, understanding measurements, and following instructions, It also gives you the opportunity to teach your children to identify healthy food and to help them to learn where their food comes from. They’ll also develop a taste for nutritious foods and begin to understand why certain foods are healthy or unhealthy.
Has the winter weather left you feeling a bit house-bound?
Take the family out for some live music
You may have a regional symphony offering a classical or pops concert nearby. Music can be found at local colleges and even area high schools. A quick check of the newspaper or online calendar will yield sources for free and low-cost local music at various venues around town, so take advantage of those opportunities. You just might find that you have a budding musician in your family!
Local and area museums offer a lot of opportunities
Children’s museums, history and natural science museums, art museums, the list goes on and on. Not only are the displays fascinating but many also offer special classes and activities for learning, many of which are designed specifically for kids. You and your family can spend hours enjoying museum offerings!
So don’t despair because of the weather during these long winter months. There are many opportunities for fun activities that will not only keep your family engaged and learning, but will also yield plenty of together time. Enjoy!
Below are suggestions for you to explore during these cold weather months:
Read a good book
The snow is falling outside, so it’s a great time to grab a blanket, curl up with your kids and dive into an engrossing story. Read aloud or silently, but set aside time for literary adventures. You can find age-appropriate suggestions for recommended reading in our previous articles: Great Children's Books for the Early Years and Great Books for Older Children.
Write and illustrate a story
Gather the family and as a group, write a story, one sentence at a time. Toss around story line suggestions with each other and edit as you go. Neatly transcribe the finished tale into a fresh notebook or blank book, making space for the artists in your family to create illustrations. The aspiring author in your family will be thrilled! Not only is this a fun activity, but you’ll be helping to build vocabulary, stretching knowledge of ideas, and giving your child a sense of how sentences build larger structures, reinforcing an understanding of orderly sequence, cause and effect, and spelling.
Create a backyard weather station
Even on cold, wintry days, your children can enjoy learning about weather, nature, science and record keeping.
Start with a journal to record daily readings and other data. All you’ll need is a thermometer to record temperatures, a rain gauge to measure rainfall or snow fall, a weather vane to record wind direction, an anemometer to measure wind speed and for older kids, a barometer to measure atmospheric pressure and a hygrometer to measure humidity. These simple weather tools can be purchased at your local hardware store or you can make many of them using common materials you may already have on hand. Scientific observation, record-keeping and hands-on research made fun!
Play chess or other strategy games
It’s never too early to teach your child to play chess or another brain-stretching strategy play. The game promotes forward thinking and planning, cause and effect, accepting consequences and patience.
Take advantage of the snow to learn about area wild animals
When the ground is freshly covered with snow, bundle up the kids, grab a digital camera and head outside. You’re likely to find animal tracks in your backyard and in nearby wooded areas as well. Use the camera to capture images of the tracks, and then when you get back home, upload the photos to a computer. From those images your child can research and identify which animal made those imprints. Is it a nocturnal animal? Where do they live? What do they eat? Your children can have lots of fun examining and piecing together the “clues” left behind by local critters.
Look up and explore the night skies
Gazing up at the starry sky is mesmerizing and there’s so much to learn on a clear night. Young children can look for landmarks, such as the moon and constellations. You can point out the moon and explain why it changes shape.You can share the legends associated with constellations. You can also explain the difference between a star and a planet. In terms they’ll understand, a star has its own flashlight and a planet works more like a mirror and reflects the light from the sun. Share with your children the names of the week that are named after the various planets, which is the brightest, the closest, and the farthest.
Teens and older children will enjoy searching the sky with a telescope or a pair of binoculars. They can spot the different colors, determine whether they’re looking at stars or planets and you can point out to them that the light that they’re seeing probably began its journey millions of years ago!
Get into the kitchen
Cooking with your children is educational on so many levels. Reading, science, math, nutrition, following directions, cleanliness and hygiene all followed by a yummy treat that they made themselves, what could be better! Cooking involves reading a recipe, understanding measurements, and following instructions, It also gives you the opportunity to teach your children to identify healthy food and to help them to learn where their food comes from. They’ll also develop a taste for nutritious foods and begin to understand why certain foods are healthy or unhealthy.
Has the winter weather left you feeling a bit house-bound?
Take the family out for some live music
You may have a regional symphony offering a classical or pops concert nearby. Music can be found at local colleges and even area high schools. A quick check of the newspaper or online calendar will yield sources for free and low-cost local music at various venues around town, so take advantage of those opportunities. You just might find that you have a budding musician in your family!
Local and area museums offer a lot of opportunities
Children’s museums, history and natural science museums, art museums, the list goes on and on. Not only are the displays fascinating but many also offer special classes and activities for learning, many of which are designed specifically for kids. You and your family can spend hours enjoying museum offerings!
So don’t despair because of the weather during these long winter months. There are many opportunities for fun activities that will not only keep your family engaged and learning, but will also yield plenty of together time. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment