Free Snow Games to Play with the Children

Afew years ago we lived very rurally, over 6 miles away from the nearest shop. When winter came in 2010 we found we were snowed in for weeks, even supermarkets wouldn’t deliver as the vans wouldn’t get through.

The first day was wonderful, the schools were closed and we spent time outside doing the usual, building a snowman and having snowball fights. After a week the novelty wore off.

This is when we made up extra games to involve the snow in a bid to encourage the children to get some fresh air. It was also a great way to incorporate a little exercise for the adults too.

The first stop was an igloo.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially if you’d like to construct an authentic one using snow bricks. We used washing up bowls for the bricks for the foundations and then found that it was much easier to create a huge hill of snow and simply hollow out the middle. Here are a few other free snow games to play with the children.

Snow Wars

It seemed like a natural progression to build walls which quickly turned into forts. Working in teams, we each took a side of the garden and constructed our own barriers to defend us from the snowballs. Over a couple of weeks these were added to and became quite elaborate, turning the garden into a maze of snow.

Rainbow Snow

The snow looks amazing when it’s just laid but the children soon tire of the white. We added some food colouring and water to spray bottles and let them make pretty patterns. It also added some fun to the snowmen, although they did look a little strange as they melted.

Snow Bow

We began this game by simply throwing a snowball at a target to see who could get the closest. It developed when my son suggested we use catapults to make it more interesting. For an hour we all had fun as we tried to hit a target the kids had made on the side of the shed. It was a lot like archery only colder and less precise!

Sleigh Rides

We didn’t have the foresight to buy the snow sleighs from the shops before we became snowed in so we had to improvise. We tried many different items all with varying degrees of success. Some were very fast but a little too wet, others were slower but more rigid.

Some of the materials we used included:

Cardboard – This was amazing for speed until the water turned it soggy.

Kitchen Tray – This was also fast, especially the plastic varieties. One did snap in half though.

Inner tube – This was great for pulling little ones along

Roasting tray – This was the best sleigh by far although we couldn’t pull the children along, they had to use their own feet to push.

 

We also found old bits of wood and help the children to make their own, much like we would with a go cart in the summer.

Of course we also had a lot of fun making snow angels but the best part of the say was coming inside to hot chocolate and warm dry pyjamas by the fire.

About Martina Mercer

Martina Mercer is an award winning freelance digital marketer and copywriter. She founded The Consumer Voice on just £4.99 and now delivers expert consumer advice as the Consumer Voice's spokesperson on the BBC.

Check Also

is it a scam

Scams to Look Out for This Summer

We’ve all found ourselves the targets of scams, whether it’s an email that’s gone to …