Kids DIY :: Wintry Day Projects

It's snowing again in Colorado.  I hate to say that I'm over winter - given that we live in Colorado to take advantage of all of the winter outdoor fun (i.e., skiing) - but I'M OVER WINTER.  My kids are even more over it.  The oldest has been complaining that his playground in covered in snow and the driveway is too slippery to run around.  Given that we can't beat winter - and just have to wait it out - I thought we'd join in the winter fun with some kids projects.

First up was the simple paper and scissors project of snowflakes.  Do you remember the hours you spent crafting the perfect snowflake as a kid?  And what a great project for my preschooler (and soon to be preschooler) to practice their cutting skills.  We rounded up a few supplies:

And voila.  An hour later, the floor was littered with tiny pieces of paper, and our windows were decorated with cheerful winter snowflakes.  The best part of this project was that it didn't cost anything and my kids love showing off which snowflakes they cut.

It had been years since I'd cut paper snowflakes of my own, and I'm embarrassed to say I had to go hunting for sources regarding how to fold the paper.  This site offers great instructions.  We weren't too particular about creating a distinct pattern.  Part of the fun was watching my kids eyes light up when they unfolded the snowflake and pieced together which of their cuts had created each cut-out. The dark marks on the photo above were tiny pieces of a Teddy Grahams wrapper.  My oldest cut the bag up into little squares and glued the shiny pieces onto his snowflakes to "make them sparkle."

Here's the full effect from our living room:

You can see that it brings a little bit of the winter from across the street right into our house.  It also adds a little cheer on this dreary day.  The view across the street usually looks like this, so you can tell that more snow is on the way today.

Cabin fever finally got the best of us during the last big snowstorm.  After sledding and snowball fighting to our hearts' content, we wanted to build a snowman.  Colorado snow is very dry and not well suited for snowman building.  We took another tactic and created a snow creature ocean in our driveway.

The kids loved helping to shape the snow creatures, and their favorite part was decorating the whale, fish and turtle.  I found an old spray bottle, filled it with water, added some food coloring, and we had hours of spraying fun. And when the snow melts, the animals and the environmentally-friendly, kid-friendly coloring are gone.

The boys took turns creating the color combinations with the dye and covering the sea life with color. Below you'll see the close-up of their fish, a blue whale and a green sea turtle.  Next time they want to make a giraffe and a lion.  I need to brush up on my snow-sculpting skills before then.

And you can tell by the rosy cheeks in the picture, once we got started, I couldn't get them back inside.

(Note: My little guy is out in the snow with no gloves.  The spray bottle is hard for little hands in mittens, so those had to be removed each time the boys had a turn.  No little hands got frostbite in the making of this snow ocean!)