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? 

Book Club: Children's Winter-Themed Books

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With our library still only offering curbside pick-up, it was just as challenging to find winter-themed books as it was when I put together a post sharing autumn-themed children's books. I had to use our library's online catalog to search by topic and by age-level to find some books that we could check out and read as we prepare for winter. While our library appointment was made a little early before the Christmas "season" began (our librarian even remarked on the fact that we checked out so many winter and Christmas books before Thanksgiving), putting together a list before the Christmas holidays was very easy and fun for me. So, what would you like to include in your Winter-themed morning basket or reading lists? How will you learn about the seasons?  

Winter on the Farm

Part of the My First Little House Books series, Winter on the Farm, by Laura Ingalls Wilder and illustrated by Jody Wheeler and Renee Graef, is a beautiful book that takes a look at the winter season on a farm in the mid-1860s. Winter on the Farm contains text adapted from Farmer Boy which features Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband, Almanzo Wilder. He lives on a large farm in the New York countryside with his father, mother, big brother, Royal, and his big sisters, Eliza Jane and Alice. In this children's picture book, we see a typical day while Almanzo helps prepare clean beds for the farm animals and milks the cows. At the close of the book, the family eats a wonderful meal of sweet baked beans, salt pork, boiled potatoes, ham, and more! 

Waiting for Winter 

A simple children's book is often the most fun to read aloud – especially during arts and crafts time. I read Waiting for Winter by Sebastian Meschenmoser to our children while they were painting, and the giggles ensued. In the story, Squirrel decides he wants to stay out of his tree to wait for winter and see the first snowflake. He is eventually joined by Hedgehog and Bear, who also want to wait for the first snowflake, but none of them know what a snowflake looks like. This is where the giggling begins as the book shows us what they each think a snowflake is! 

Sleep Tight Farm 

The gentle but educational text by Eugene Doyle and illustrations by Becca Stadtlander make Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter a wonderful children's book to read about the approaching winter season. I found so many wonderful things to talk about with our children as I read through the book with them one day at lunch. As the farming family prepares their farm for the winter weather, we learn about covering crops to protect them from the cold, the varieties of food the farm was harvesting, and the preparation of the raspberry bushes. I think one of my favorite parts to share with them was about the bees and beehives since we had recently watched a video clip about beekeeping.

Snowflakes and Ice Skates: A Winter Counting Book 

Part of the same series of books from which we read Footballs and Falling Leaves, this book introduces key images associated with winter and reinforces counting. How many mittens? How many sleds? It is an easy book for early readers to read aloud with you. 

Why Do Geese Fly South in Winter? A Book About Migration 

For children who are a bit beyond learning to count, you can read this book by Kathy Allen about migration with them. Key vocabulary words include habitats, hibernate, instinct, migrate, and sense. These words are defined in Why Do Geese Fly South in Winter in the glossary and throughout the book. Our son enjoyed reading about the different animals that migrate and applying that knowledge to the other books we read about winter.

Winter's Coming: A Story of Seasonal Change 

One of our favorite books from the library was Winter's Coming by Jan Thornhill and illustrated by Josée Bisaillon. The story traces a young snowshoe hare, Lily, during her first year. She was born in the spring and has never met winter before this one. Just who or what is Winter, she wonders. Throughout the story, there are funny moments as she tries to figure out if she should get ready for winter like other animals are getting ready. In the end, she meets winter and leaps in the air just for fun.

Learning about the seasons can be so much fun when you incorporate books – both picture books and nonfiction – into your homeschool day. Even the smallest of libraries can provide access to a great number of books. These were only a few of the books that our library had available for checkout, so we will be sure to find more in the near future! 

Sugar Plums Dancing...Snowflakes Falling...Let's Write about December with Free Writing Prompts

As the winter officially approaches, many parts of the world are already under the grips of cold weather – from freezing blizzards to lovely snowfalls – winter weather can bring lots of changes to our lives. Many families are taking a break from traditional homeschooling studies to celebrate Christmas so this is the perfect time to work on writing skills in a more relaxed setting. Don't know what to write? Why not try these free writing prompts? 

Photo Prompts 

Writing Prompts 

Download Here! 

What is your favorite thing to write about in the winter? 

Missed our other writing prompts? 

Family Fun: Winter Crafts and Activities

Now that the weather is getting colder, are you dreaming of hot chocolate by the fire and putting up the holly and ivy? Commercials advertising Christmas gifts are popping up on TV and the sounds of the holiday season can be heard earlier and earlier each year in the malls and stores. All of the Halloween and Thanksgiving items are going on clearance. Are you eagerly awaiting the first snowfall? 

Over the years I have shared our winter arts and crafts and activities at A Mom's Quest to Teach. In order to help find those posts, I am sharing them again in one convenient place – right here!

Do you have a favorite? Or does your family partake in their own fun winter activity? 

Winter Crafts 

Snowflake Sun Catcher 

Snowman Names 

Toddler's Christmas Felt Tree 

Snowman Milk Container Craft 

Do you have a favorite winter time craft or activity? 

Crafts: Snowflake Sun Catchers

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Materials 

• coffee filters 
• markers 
• spray bottle 
• scissors 
• laminating machine (optional) 

Steps 

1. Gather all your materials.

2. Children draw on the coffee filters using markers.

3. Spray the coffee filters with water.

4. Allow to dry.

5. Cut out patterns to create snowflakes.

6. Laminate snowflake sun catchers. (optional)

7. Hang in windows.

I love how simple this craft is but that it also creates something beautiful to hang in the window all winter long.

My daughter tried out each marker on her hands prior to using it to color the coffee filter.

My son and daughter had already done a similar craft with coffee filters for Halloween, so they got right down to the business of drawing.

I drew a tree on one for my son to decorate and we talked about ornaments, garland, and what to put on top of the tree.

Older children can cut out the snowflake designs themselves. It's Always Autumn has a free video and templates helping you and your children cut out interesting snowflake patterns.

Looking for patterns to make your own snowflakes?