Frugal and Easy Indoor Snow Activities for Kids

Entertaining the kids during the winter months can be a sanity saver but it can also become quite expensive when you are trying to find new activities every week. Finding things that you can do with the supplies you already have on hand saves time – and money.

Why not bring the snow indoors for some indoor snow activities?

We’ve brought a new element of fun indoors this year when I decided to bring the snow inside and see what we could do with it. Do you have a water table outside? Bring it inside to the basement before the snow comes and create a ski-hill or to house these fun activities. It’s easy to clean up and keeps the snow container.

Here are five of our favourite activities with snow:
Snow Painting
Spray bottles, squirt bottles, even old bottles that you used for dish soap can be used for this easy activity. First, fill the bottle up with water (or as much as the kiddo is able to hold) and put a few drops of their favorite colour of food colouring into the water. Usually 6-8 drops will create colours that shine on the snow. Head outside, and make designs in the snow, mix the colours and make snow-art.

Indoor Snowmen
Bring the outdoors in with a sensory activity that’s perfect for those days where it’s too cold outside, but you still want to play in the Snow. Using a small Tupperware or plastic container, you can work on creating snowballs and use things like buttons and baby-carrots to give the snowman (or woman) a little personality.

Iceberg Activity
Want to bring the snow inside and really create some fun? Why not bring (clean) snow into the bathtub. Use the same plastic container that was used for the snowmen and build mountains of the snow. Next, fill the tub with lukewarm or cool water and place the mountains of snow into the water. This is a fun activity to do with kids as a first science experiment, learning how quickly the snow melts, or what happens when the snow interacts with water.

Coloured Snow Blocks
This takes a bit of prep, but is still quite fun. Using small containers that you have around the house – filled with snow, you can create a fun activity where kids can experiment with colour and snow. Fill up the containers and spray the tops until the entire form has been saturated with colour. Once it has been saturated, stick the snow back outside and let it harden. Bring them in, and create a small igloo.

Muffin Tin Colour Experiment
Note: this one can get a little messy so you are going to want to make sure that you aren’t wearing anything you won’t mind getting a little stained and protect the area where you are working. Perfect for preschoolers that are just learning about colours, this activity starts by filling a muffin tray with twelve clean white “snow cupcakes”. Letting the kiddo take control of the food colouring jars, they can see what happens when they combine certain colours into the snow. Bring out a small spoon to mix the colours and saturate it to avoid using those little fingers to mix the snow.

There’s lots of fun that you can have doing indoor snow activities – and these are just a few of them. Bringing it indoors can be just what your toddler needs on those days when it’s too cold to venture outdoors.

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Lori is a self-proclaimed DIY addict, mother of a busy preschooler and a baby. You can find her blogging about fun learning activities that aren’t going to break the bank, shopping deals and frugal lifestyle tips at Frugal Edmonton Mama.

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