Christmas may sadly be over, but winter certainly isn't!
With lots of us in the UK experiencing snow recently, I wanted to show you a few simple ways to incorporate the colder weather into fun play ideas for your little ones. These examples all use components of my play kits, but with a variety of different sensory materials to explore.
Do you want to build a snowman?
You'll need:
- 3 cups of bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 cup of hair conditioner
To make your 'snow', mix together the bicarbonate of soda and conditioner (the nicer smelling the better!) in a bowl. It'll last about a week once stored in an airtight container. Of course, if you've got real snow where you are, scoop it up and bring it inside!
You can use this snow in small world set-ups, but it's also so much fun to use for building snowmen. Here, we've used the components of our best selling snowman play kit for decorations, but buttons, sticks, googly eyes and pieces of material would work just as well.
Let's clear the roads
You'll need:
- Washing up liquid
- Water
- An electric whisk
This time, I made our snow out of foam for a different texture. Add a small splash of water to a big squirt of washing up liquid and mix on a high speed setting for about a minute, until you have a nice, foamy mixture. You could also use shaving foam as an alternative.
I spread ours out in a deep baking tray, laid down some road tape and added some of the parts from our construction play kit - the kids love clearing the roads and shovelling the snow! You could also use cars, bridges, farm vehicles and train tracks.
Make a homemade ice-rink
Here, I've frozen about a centimetre of water with blue food colouring in a tray, and added components of the winter fairy play kit. This was my kids absolute favourite - they kept playing long after the ice had all melted!
We love the fairy scenes from Fantasia, and they had me play the music for them while their fairies danced around, covering everything with frost and ice.
This one is so open-ended, you could add cold weather-themed animals, cotton wool for snow balls or ice cubes to build with.
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