I have had a few conversations lately with other friends about simple activities to do with our kids over winter break. Being that this is my first year with my daughter in school, I think we are going to run into a few days over the next few weeks where she is looking for the next best thing to do. So, I thought instead of trying to constantly come up with things on the fly, I would create a Winter Break Activity Bingo board for us to use for inspiration! My plan is to print this Bingo board and hang it on our refrigerator. Anytime my daughter whines (we all know it is inevitable lol) I can say, “Hey! Let’s check out our Bingo board and see an activity we can try!”
These activities are simple, engaging, and perfect for all family members to enjoy together. These next few weeks of winter break are exciting and a great time to relax and unwind with our families. But if the boredom monster is starting to rear its ugly head, try these activities for a good winter break boredom buster!
Fun Things To Do Over Winter Break:
1. Decorate construction paper Christmas trees with stickers. This one could not be easier! Simply cut out Christmas trees with green paper and decorate with Christmas stickers. We love using ours from Dollar Tree or Target.
2. Go for a walk or drive around looking at holiday decorations. Bonus points for a drive through dinner along the way or a hot cocoa to go!
3. Whip up a batch of hot chocolate cloud dough and play! Make hot chocolate cloud dough by combining flour and hot cocoa mix with oil to create your cloud dough. Include some cups and spoons and let your child play!
4. Make homemade holiday cards for family and friends. Set out construction paper, stickers, markers and crayons, glitter glue pens, and washi tape and have your child create cards for their family and friends.
5. Make a paper plate wreath with leftover pieces of wrapping paper. Cut out the center of a paper plate and punch a hole at the top to add ribbon and make your own paper plate wreath to add to your decorations!
6. Make a fort in the living room and watch a movie. Our favorites are currently Illuminations The Grinch and Frosty The Snowman.
7. Make a puzzle from a cereal box. You can make this as easy or complicated as you want. Cut out pieces of one side of a cereal box into large shapes for your child to put back together.
8. Set up a pretend play coffee shop or hot cocoa stand. Gather your materials on a table or pretend play stand with a cash register and start playing. Our favorite set up is from our December Learn and Play packet.
9. Make fake snow to play with or bring real snow inside to explore in a sensory bin! Living in Florida, we don’t get the real thing so we have used packing peanuts, cotton balls, flour, baking soda, and mini packing beads.
I added some sparkly alphabet stickers to our fake snow sensory bin and paired it with an alphabet mat from my December Alphabet Mat Packet.
10. Take a bath with glow sticks and turn the lights off. This would be so fun so close to New Years Eve!
11. Make a name snowman out of white paper. Cut out small circles of white paper and write the letters of your child’s name on each circle for them to build or decorate their own name snowman. For older kids, have them write the letters themselves. Provide materials to decorate their snowmen with eyes, nose, buttons, arms, a hat, and a scarf.
12. Make a batch of homemade play dough (or use store bought) and add your child’s favorite figurines to it. We absolutely love to add small character figurines to our play dough to create play scenes with. Frozen figurines and Disney princesses are a favorite! To read more about this activity, head to our post all about our favorite Frozen Play Dough Tray here!
13. Make New Years goals as a family. This can be a simple conversation over dinner or a jumping off point to create a list of experiences you would like to have as a family in the new year.
14. Make a snowman doughnut snack. This one is too fun! Get your mini white doughnut holes and include chocolate chips or raisons for eyes, pretzel sticks for arms, and M&Ms for buttons! We love the directions from Delish you can see here.
15. Read a favorite story by the fire or pretend fire. For the winter months coming up, our favorite books are The Mitten by Jan Brett and Snowmen At Night by Caralyn Buehner. If you don’t have a real fire, you can watch a pretend one on the TV on Disney+ called Arendelle Castle Yule Log. A fireplace straight from Anna and Elsa’s castle?! Yes, please!
I hope that these simple activities provide some inspiration for you and your kids to enjoy fun activities together over winter break. If you would like to print and download this as a Bingo board to hang on your fridge for daily inspiration, simply click HERE to download, print, and play!
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