25 Fun Winter Activities for Kids

 Right now here in ND we are in the middle of the coldest part of the year.  It's been freezing outside for months now and below zero for weeks at a time.

Yep, not gonna lie, we are starting to go a little crazy!

I love to stay at home, but after awhile, I get sick of being stuck inside all of the time!

And my kids go even crazier than I do by this time of the year!  So...I came up with a list for you {and me} of fun activities that kids can do to make the cold long winter days seem shorter and more fun.

Hope this helps your kids make it through till spring finally comes!

1.  Play grocery store.  Round up either real or fake food, clothes, and anything fun that you can pretend to buy and sell.  Find some fun play money to use or use chocolate coins for fun.  

2.  Play doctor.  Use bandaides, toilet tissues, bottles, and blankets to create a clinic.  Let your kids take turns being the doctors and patients. 

3.  Make homemade play dough, slime, or fun glitter gak.

4.  Bake cookies and wrap some up to drop by the neighbors houses.

5.  Play school.  Learn the alphabet, new words, or read some new books.  Take turns being the teachers and students.  Make a chalkboard and pretend you are in school in the old days.

6.  Play library.  Have a contest to see how many books you can read.  Give a brand new book to the person who wins the contest.

7.  Play sherades.  Act out plays or Bible stories and use costumes to make it all seem very real. 

8.  Play camping.  Set up a tent in the living room.  Make a pretend campfire and use flashlights and tell stories.  Eat s'mores and sandwiches and go for "hikes" to find bears and moose.

9.  Have a hot chocolate party.  Make homemade hot chocolate and s'mores.  Invite friends to enjoy the fun.

10.  Create a personalized photo album for each child.  Gather together some fun pictures, paper, and other fun things.  Have them help create their very own memory book to remember good times.

11.  Create a giant Noah's ark in your living room or bedroom.  Take out all of the stuffed animals and pretend to have a rainstorm.  Let the kids use their imaginations.  Play Noah's Ark songs.

12.  Have a painting day.  Paint pictures or posters.  You could also paint personalized T-shirts with sponges.

13.  Have a United States party.  Find photos and fun facts about all of the states and make an album with a page about each state.  

14.  Have a music party.  Play everyone's favorite songs and sing them together.  Pick a word and see how many songs you can come up with that have that word in them.

15.  Have a people day.  Call friends and family and make sure the kids get to talk to all of them.  Tell the kids special facts about each person that they called and make sure to let each person know how special they are to you.

16.  Have a Mind your Manners party.  Make a dinner and have the kids practice their manners to each other as they eat their meal.  Watch a movie about manners.

17.  Play an old fashioned game of hide and seek. 

18.  Plan a gym day with your friends. 

19.  Take a day to go to your favorite restaurants.  Get your meal at one place, and your dessert at the next.  Enjoy talking about why people like certain foods more than others.

20.  Have a game day.  Take out all of your favorite games and play them.  Make sure to talk about being good sports and make sure everyone knows to have fun.

21.  Have a special kids day where they can do something that they want to do.  They get to choose the activity and you will do it with them.  Within reason of course.

22.   Have a photography party.  Go driving and take pictures of your day.  Go home and make an album to document your day.  Share with Daddy when he gets home.

23.  Go outside and make snowmen and snow angels!!  On a warm day of course!

24.  Have an exercise day.  See how many stretches and exercises you can do before you get tired!

25.  Learn how to make something new...like clay animals, for instance.  Enjoy making mistakes and learning together.

Specially For Kids #3 {Monster Cookies}

If you can believe it, I have NEVER tried making monster cookies before.
Or, let's put it this way, I have never been successful at making them before.

So when I ran into this recipe, I was excited, but kinda skeptical.

But I thought I'd try it anyway.  And seeing that they were called Montana Whoppers, I REALLY thought it might be worth trying.

And I can't lie, I was pretty happy with the results.

Here are the infamous cookies which were eaten within a day.  SO yummy!!

And here's the recipe! {I got the recipe from Taste As You Go}

Montana Whoppers

INGREDIENTS

• 2/3 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups chunky peanut butter
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 5 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
• 6 ounces M&M Minis

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Melt the butter in a small pan over low heat. Once the butter has melted, pour it into the largest bowl you can find.
2. With a large wooden spoon, blend in the brown sugar, sugar, and peanut butter. Allow the mixture to cool slightly and then add the beaten eggs. Stir until the batter is just mixed.
3. Stir in the baking soda, the white chocolate chips, the milk chocolate chips, and the M&Ms.
4. Add the oats, one cup at a time, stirring after each addition. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and chill for at least two hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
6. Drop dough on parchment-lined baking sheets with a large spoon, making sure the dough is fairly well packed. Flatten slightly.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Watch the cookies carefully, as they have a tendency to burn easily.

I'm SO happy I found this recipe!!
Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for coming back for another...

Specially for Kids #2 {Girly Photos}

Welcome back to Specially for Kids!!

I'm always so happy to have you here to visit.

I'm sorry I was MIA last week...I even had a post planned but life just got in the way
and I just couldn't get to posting.  {I'm sure no one knows how that goes?!!}

If you missed my first Specially for Kids, you gotta check out the fun Crayon Canvas we made.  It was a blast!

This week has been GORGEOUS here in ND and I got my camera out again finally!

I put it away for such a long time.  I've missed it.

I have a ton of fun photos to share of my girls {surprise, surprise!}
I hope you enjoy them.

I am a portrait photographer at heart, and so I am always trying to capture someone in my lens.
Since my girls are the ones around to capture they end up being in MOST of my pictures!

{Someday I promise I will actually appear in a picture or two.  I desperately NEED some new ones of me. Ha}

I hope you don't mind.  hehe

 

Thank you for letting me share!!  

And thanks for joining me for 

Specially for Kids #1 {Crayon Canvas}

That's right.  This one's gonna be ALL about kids.

Specially for kids. My kids.  Your kids.  Everyone's kids.
All about fun.  All about kids.

Once a week {on Thursdays, unless I feel like putting it on another day, which I've already done!} I'm going to be posting something ANYthing fun that's related to kids.  And once again it's going to be easy-peasy going.  Just like me.  Ha!

{Cue hilarious laughing}

It might be about kiddo snacks, crafts, games, projects, ANYTHING related to kid stuff. 

OR if I get stuck in a rut I may just share fun kids stuff I have found around bloggy land.  Or Pinterest.
Cuz' that's the way I like it.  Who says blogging can't be simple AND easy?

This week I'm going to share a project I've been wanting to do for a LONG time.  I'm sure you've seen it, and maybe you've even tried it.  But it's pretty fun and cool looking too.

This is such a fun kiddo project, they will thank you for letting them do it!

HA!

{I found this project on Pinterest, but here is the original site with the tutorial}

Here's how I did it.

Crayon Canvas Project

I started with a 16 x 20 blank white canvas that I ordered on Amazon.
Then I took a box of crayons and lined them up at the top of the canvas in rainbow colors and glued them on with hot glue.

Note:  I used only the brighter colors and kept out the blacks and browns to keep it bright and fun.

Then I took my blow dryer, turned it on low heat, and ran it across the bottom sides of the crayons till they started to melt.

I must confess, this part is a bit tricky!  You may have to experiment for awhile so that you can get the hang of it.  Also make sure you put the canvas on towels when you are using the dryer...the colors will spray just a little bit a lot.

Melt the crayons until your canvas looks the way you want it to.  It took me about ten minutes of melting to get it how I wanted!!


Isn't it way cool?  I love this project!!

I definitely didn't get it perfect, but I like it and that's what counts right?  This project is so much fun I think I'll do another one! {I have five more canvases in the house!}

 

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Hope you come back next time for Specially for Kids

I would love to hear about some of your kids projects that you have been working on!