Learning Year Round: Wintertime Homeschool Fun

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For those who live in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter season can bring drastic changes to their homeschool routine. If you are a homeschool family that spends a lot of time outdoors nature schooling, going on hikes and nature walks, or doing other outdoor activities, the winter may have you change up those routines. But learning year-round can continue to happen in fun and inventive ways. Wintertime homeschool fun can still happen outdoors. Or if your children prefer the indoors, there are new activities you can include. 

Learning Year-Round Outdoors 

Cold weather and snow do not need to keep you indoors. The wintertime opens up a new world of nature schooling. While many animals migrate or hibernate for the winter, there are quite a few that stay around for several reasons. If you or your neighbors have bird feeders out year-round, then you'll be sure to see birds and rodents around them, no matter the weather.  

Animals who stay active during the winter will provide your family with the opportunity to study how they adapt and change to the seasons. You can easily see their footprints in freshly fallen snow. Rabbits, squirrels, and other animals provide a great chance to observe animals from the inside comfort of your home. 

Outdoor physical activities can continue and change, too! Invite your children to help shovel snow and clean the walkways. Build snowmen, igloos, forts, and have snowball fights with your children. Ask your children to help take care of the outdoor animals. Teach them how to protect your home during the winter. These physical activities can bring together fun and education for your homeschool family.  

Indoor Wintertime Homeschool Fun 

In addition to sticking to your normal routine, you can add in new lessons, curriculum, resources, games, art projects, and more into your day. The new year is the perfect time to introduce these new activities. For example, we started a new social studies curriculum (courtesy of Timberdoodle) with our fifth-grader. It was a fun way to shack things up this winter.

To help with those fidgety moments, I also added some additional fidget toys. We introduced the Tangle™ to our children. This toy allows the user to twist and tangle it. They can keep their hands active while listening to read-alouds or thinking about math problems. 

Complementary Product Received

After visiting a table-top gaming convention, we also added in one new card game. There are two ways to play the game. The most basic way resembles the card game, War. Simply put: War of Beasts is a "twist on the classic card game war with magical beasts and enhancements." If you are playing the advanced version of the game, you want to collect enough gems to win the game. The cards are colorful and range from such mystical creatures as electric fire dragons and ethereal rats to phenomena modifiers like tornadoes, blizzards, and giant potions. 

What resources and activities do you add to your homeschool during the wintertime for fun? 

Animals: Bats - the Myths and the Crafts

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Bats are spectacular creatures. They are the only mammal that truly flies. And there are so many myths to explore about their habits and features that kids love learning about them. My children and I talked about bats as we explored several books about them including Bats (The World of Mammals) by Sophie Lockwood and Stellaluna by Janell Cannon. We also discussed myths and made two bat-themed crafts.

Coffee Filter Bat Craft

Materials 

• Coffee filters
• Black, brown, and pink markers
• Spray bottle or eye dropper for water 
• Tray 
• Clothespins 
• Construction paper 
• Magnet strips 
• White glue 
• Scissors 

Steps

1. Gather all of your materials.

2. Using the black or brown marker, color on the coffee filter.

3. Lay the coffee filters on a tray and spray them with water or use an eye dropper to drip water onto the filters.

4. After your coffee filters have dried, open your clothespin and fold the coffee filter into the open clip part.

5. Draw faces for your bats.
6. Glue the faces onto your bats.
7. Attach a magnet to the back of the bats so you can hang them onto your refrigerator.

There are so many misconceptions about bats. Many believe they are blind, suck blood, and are just pests but this couldn't be further from the truth.

Myth One - "Blind as a Bat"

Bats have eyes and can actually see rather well but they do use echolocation to help them navigate the night skies. Whales, dolphins, and even submarines use echolocation to help them navigate. Not all bats have or use echolocation but insectivores do to help them find their food. Fruit bats even see in color to aid them in the finding of their favorite fruits.

Myth Two - All bats suck blood.

Of the over one thousand species of bats, only three types drink blood as their preferred meal choice. These bats live in Central and South America and prefer cattle or bird blood to humans.

Do you love bugs or insects? No? Well, then bats are one of your best friends. One little brown bat can eat up to 1000 mosquitoes an hour. The insects provide protein and fats for the flying creatures and humans can say goodbye to pests.

Myth Three - Bats get stuck in your hair.

Remember echolocation? Bats will not get tangled up in your hair because they can use their echolocation skills to navigate around you.

Myth Four - Bats have rabies.

While a small percentage of the bats captured for testing to the Centers for Disease Control in the United States may have rabies, they aren't any more likely to contract rabies than other wild animals. However, it is important to not handle any wild animal.  If you think an animal is ill, call animal control or the police to help you find the right people who can help you.

Myth Five - Bats are flying mice.

Nope. Bats aren't even related to rodents. They are classified by scientists into their own group: Chiroptera (hand-wing).

Toilet Paper Roll Bat Craft 

Materials 

• Toilet paper rolls
• Brown, black, and pink markers
• Construction paper 
• Brown or black paint
• Paintbrushes
• White glue
• Tape 
• Scissors 

Steps 

1. Gather all of your materials.

2. Paint the toilet paper rolls.

3. Have your children create hand prints on the construction paper. I recommend painting their hands with the paintbrush to get a nice, even print.

4. After the hand prints are dry, cut them out.
5. Draw a face for the bat.

6. Attach the face and hand prints (wings) to the bats with glue and tape.

How do bats help? Why are they important?

• Insectivores control the insect population 
• Bats that eat fruit help with pollination - they spread seeds of the fruit that they eat 
• Reforestation by fruit bats 

Resources 

National Geographic Kids' Bat Myths Busted 

National Geographic Kids' Amazing Bats of Bracken Cave

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