Featured Activities
Snow Lanterns
It's fun and easy to make backyard lanterns out of snow and ice! Set a candle inside and enjoy the frosty glow.
What You Need
snow (the sticky, easy-to-pack kind is best)
small candle
matches
What You Do
1. Stamp down a flat place in the snow for your lantern.
2. Pack snow into balls the size of oranges.
3. Arrange the snowballs in a circle, leaving an opening on one side to add the candle later.
4. Stack another layer of snowballs on top of the first, curving this layer inward a bit.
5. Keep adding layers, curving them inward, until the top of the lantern is closed.
6. Grown-up job: light the candle and slide it into the opening.
Ice Lanterns
It's fun and easy to make backyard lanterns out of snow and ice! Set a candle inside and enjoy the frosty glow.
What You Need
two plastic bowls, one smaller than the other
water
duct tape
small candle
matches
What You Do
1. Fill bowls with water.
2. Set the small bowl inside the large one. Adjust the water levels so that the small bowl is floating.
3. Place a piece of duct tape across the top of the bowls to center the small one.
4. Carefully move the bowls outside, if the temperature is below 32˚ F, or to the freezer.
5. After the water freezes, remove the ice from the molds. If it's hard to get out, run a little warm water over the bowls. (You won't use the ice in the small bowl.)
6. Take the larger ice shape outside and place the candle inside it.
7. Grown-up job: light the candle.
Check It Out! This activity plus many more are featured on the National Wildlife Federation’s website: www.nwf.org
Be Out There – a great resource for inspiration and ideas.
The Snowy Day
A Caldecott award winning book published in 1962, The Snowy Day is about a boy named Peter how goes out to experience the joys of winter. Here’s an idea for a fun snowy day activity:
Read The Snowy Day and identify the different ways that Peter explores winter.
Make “explorer cards” for each way that Peter explores:
Walk with toes pointing out and toes pointing in
Drag a stick in the snow
Make a snow angel
Build a snowman
Climb a mountain and slide down it
Put a snowball in your pocket
Bundle up and head outside with your explorer cards. Play “The Snowy Day” game by taking turns to draw a card. Everybody does what is drawn/written on the card.
Invent your own way to explore winter. Take turns and try each person’s idea.
Click here for more learning activities to go with this book!
5 Games for Snow Play
The snow is melting and we need another blizzard! Try some of these games and activities to keep winter fun!
Look Up – Look Down – Look All Around
Go for a walk with a focus on observing things you might ordinarily overlook:
See what you can discover by only looking up (try lying down on your backs in the snow)
See what you can discover by only looking down
See what you can discover by looking all around at eye level.
Come back indoors and make a drawing, write a poem, create a collage about your discoveries!
Bike Wheel Snow Tag
Stomp out a big circle in the snow. Then stomp out spokes meeting at the center. To play, you can only run in the stomped-out tracks of the bike wheel. The center can be safe zone – but you can only stay there for 3 seconds. So many variations to try!
Snow Shadow Tag
Play freeze tag (or any variation of tag) by chasing your shadows on the snow. Create new rules each time – to ‘tag’ each other you have to:
Jump on the shadow
Make a snow angel on the shadow
Throw a snowball and hit the shadow
Make an overlapping shadow of an alligator’s mouth chomping the shadow
The possibilities are limitless!
Snow Angel Art
Making snow angels can be a half-day (or at least a good half-hour!) project. Use your imagination and have fun with one of the simplest pleasures of winter:
Create a snow angel chain – link together one snow angel after the next
Create a snow angel circle – have lots of people form a circle and do snow angels at the same time
Create a modern art snow angel – make snow angels on top of each other, next to, overlapping until
you’ve made your masterpiece
Create a snow angel note – write your name, letters or even a note by adjoining snow angels
Snow Zoo
Tired of making snow people? Try creating a snow zoo of animals (full-size or miniature). Here are some different variations:
What animals would we find at the zoo in the polar exhibit? The reptile house? the savannah area?
What animals do we see here in northern MI in the winter?
What animals migrate from northern MI in the winter?
What animals would we find in a rainforest?
What animals would we find in a desert?
Ice Fishing Fun
So many lakes to explore! We are blessed with not only the “big lake” , but so many smaller inland lakes to explore. Here are some resources to get you started:
Everything You Need to Know about Ice Fishing
Tips for Better and Safer Ice Fishing
MI DNR Weekly Ice Fishing Report
Some inland lakes you might explore:
Round Lake
Crooked Lake
Pickerel Lake
Burt Lake
Mullett Lake
Round Lake
Douglas Lake
Lake Paradise/Carp Lake
French Farm Lake
Larks Lake
O’Neal Lake
Walloon Lake
Wycamp Lake
