Winter Homeschool Fun – How to add some creative fun!
The long (yet technically shorter ha!) winter days after all of the holidays wind down can seem even longer in the homeschool world. Add in gray, bleak cold days and things can start to feel a bit dull. You may be in desperate need of some winter homeschool fun!
Whether you’re needing a bit of a homeschool refresh mid-year or feeling like you’re on the edge of homeschool burnout, winter can just make it all feel blah.
The idea of embracing the season you’re in is so important in life and homeschool is no exception to that. I shared about homeschooling seasonally in a post on homeschool fun.
Learning to embrace the beautiful side of this downtime is easy and fun to do with the helpful tips I’ve compiled below!
Add in some hygee for instant winter homeschool fun
Hygee (pronounced hue gah) is basically the Danish art of creating a cozy, warm inviting space. The idea is largely associated with the winter months, which is why it’s so fitting with homeschool.
Being indoors more and looking for some extra coziness after all the cozy holidays is the perfect time to add in some hygee.
Keep up the twinkle lights after Christmas, have the fireplace going throughout the day, baking treats and having tea or hot chocolate while reading aloud, cozying up on the couch with blankets while doing work.
The ideas are endless and completely customizable – just add in more of what makes you and your kids happy and comfy!
Hygee is something that can most definitely be added any time of year, but winter is a really fabulous time to give it a try!
Make snow & have a snow day (or two!)
Whether or not you live where it actually snows, enjoy the beauty of snow right at home!
Something fun we always do in December, but keep up through Valentine’s Day is make paper snowflakes.
We use clear string to hang them in the kitchen and in their bedrooms. You could do the same in any room or even tape them to windows.
My kids love this tradition and I have to say I do too! There are tons of great tutorials online to master the art of paper snowflakes, but this one is a great, easy to follow tutorial!
Another idea – MAKE snow! Even if you are getting your fair share of the real stuff, this can be so much fun for your kids to be able to play with snow indoors!
I found this fun post with many great ideas to make snow your kids can play with. This can be a creative, great way to spend an afternoon.
“Fun mom” bonus haha – surprise your kids with a snow day! Talk about winter homeschool fun!
Again, you may get snow days where you live, but maybe you don’t follow along with the local school schedule.
Even if there is no snow, just pick a random day (or two!) in January or February and when your kids get up, surprise them!
Whatever the case there is nothing as fun as being a kid and waking up to a snow day – no school and play all day!
Audio books to the rescue!
As big of a fan as I am of reading aloud to your kids – at all ages! – sometimes you just need a break. Enter the lovely world of audio books. There are so many amazing books digitally these days, and so many ways to enjoy them.
My favorite is of course (if you’ve been following along with my blog posts for a while you know my love for the library runs DEEP haha!) digitally from your local library! There are a couple of well-known apps/services to borrow for FREE digitally from your library:
Hoopla – my choice and what I have used for years. Very user friendly and tons of audio books, e-books, movies, television shows, music and even some courses or special offerings from your local library system.
Libby – is another digital borrowing app I have heard a lot about. I haven’t tried this one myself but again know lots of people who use it and swear by it.
Audio books are awesome for the car and road trips but can be a huge helper to your days where your voice needs a break!
They’re also great to have playing while your kids work on an art project or just color or build Legos or Magna Tiles to keep their hands busy.
Another great winter activity to pair with read alouds or audio books is working on a lapbook. I have created many unit studies for my kids but I really like and have purchased many lap books from this great site.
These are a really fun, engaging way to bring a story to life and perfect to do while listening to the audio version or right after.
Art Project Ideas = winter homeschool fun!
Besides making snow & snowflakes there are a lot of really cool winter themed crafts and art projects out there.
Here are some top ideas:
White crayon snow scene
Draw a winter scene with white crayons on plain paper (if you have a thicker art paper that works best, but printer paper will work too).
Use watercolors to paint over the white crayon drawing. It’s really fun for your kids to see their drawings come to life when the watercolor glazes over the crayon drawing.
Winter themed slime or playdoh
Some great slime ideas can be found here snowflake slime and here fun winter slime recipes.
As for DIY playdoh, if you haven’t made this with your kids yet, it’s so easy and so fun, for all ages! Seriously preschoolers to adults love to play with this soft, pliable playdoh you can make at home!
This recipe is exactly what they used at my oldest daughter’s first toddler art class AND what my mom used to make for me and my siblings when we were little 🙂 So fun!
Finger-paint winter tree
This one is totally open for interpretation. Paint your kiddos hand (branches) and press onto paper, draw on a trunk and add details. Or purely finger paint the tree and branches and go from there.
Add in birds, snowflakes, berries, and you can even make 3D with glued on twigs or berries from outside.
Northern lights painting
This one is especially great for older kids! I painted alongside my kids with a tutorial and it was so soothing and therapeutic! The paintings turned out so, so pretty too.
I can’t find the link to the exact tutorial we watched but if you search “northern lights watercolor” in YouTube you will see so many videos to follow & paint alongside.
Birds of winter drawings or paintings
Pinterest has tons of great links but here are a few of my favorites: cardinal tutorial, mixed medial birds, Art for Kids Hub bluejay drawing, birds & other cute winter themed art projects
Make your own pinecone bird feeder
This is really fun to do, although the peanut butter can be a bit messy!
If you don’t have pinecones in your yard or hand, you can totally use popsicle sticks tied together in a “X” shape with twine or even a cardboard tube from paper towels or toilet paper!
You’ll need peanut butter, bird seed and some yarn or twine, as well as a pinecone or whatever you choose to be the structure of the bird feeder.
It’s super easy and fun for kids to make and then watch the birds come enjoy!
Here is a tutorial with pictures also another cute idea I just came across.
Celebrate Seasonal Holidays & Special Days
There are quite a few special days that fall after the New Year and before spring has officially sprung.
Your local library is a wonderful resource for creating mini unit studies for these holidays.
Look for read aloud books (both story and picture books as well as biographies are great to read aloud as a family) to add to your homeschool morning basket.
This is also a place where Pinterest can come in handy! SO many ideas on how to make these “smaller” holidays bigger, fun and educational too.
Here are some special days to add in some winter homeschool learning fun:
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
A wonderful opportunity to show your children Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech watch here.
Another great resource here is to visit the National Park Service’s website. There is a ton of information, videos, and photos here spotlighting the Martin Luther King, Jr. park in Georgia as well as other area landmarks, like King’s birth home.
President’s Day – as well as Lincoln & Washington’s individual birthdays
A presidential study is a great tie in to President’s Day, on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, or on any or all presidents your kids may be interested in learning more about.
Mt. Rushmore is another fascinating presidential topic to kids and adults of all ages. There are some great videos (for older kids especially) on YouTube to watch as well as a LOT of fun art activity ideas for younger kids on good old Pinterest.
Groundhog Day
This is a fun day to learn all about the groundhog and also about hibernation. A weather or study of the seasons would also work really well here.
Spend some time the day before making predictions of what the groundhog’s prediction will be and maybe have your kids draw a chart of all the guesses. Hang on the fridge and whoever “wins” with their prediction gets to choose a snack for all to enjoy while you read aloud that day.
Check some picture books out of the library to read, make this cute groundhog pop up craft and make a fun day out of this little furry creature!
Valentine’s Day
Hearts, hearts and more hearts – you get the theme here!
Start the day off with heart shaped pancakes or make (or order!) heart shaped pizza for lunch or dinner, sip on pink berry smoothies, or make this fun snack mix for something special!
Make some “heart art” like this or this or any of these – SO many cute ideas out there!
Dr. Seuss Birthday (in March, but technically still winter ☺ )
Dr. Suess and fun go hand in hand which makes his birthday a wonderful addition to my list of winter homeschool fun ideas!
March 2 is the day the master storyteller was born and a day worth celebrating if you’re a Seuss lover!
There are so many ways to have some fun with your kids on this day, starting with breakfast, Green Eggs & Ham anyone??
This is a day celebrated in most public schools and for good reason, it’s to mark the importance of reading. In fact the National Education Association celebrates this day as Read Across America week, making it the most celebrated day/week of reading there is!
If you’re not into Green Eggs and Ham here are a couple of other fun recipes to try!
Make special hats to all wear while you take the day off from worksheets and embrace this special time reading the day away!
Have some winter homeschool fun!
I hope these ideas inspire you to see all the beautiful ways you can lean into these long winter days and have some much needed fun with your homeschool.
Do you have some favorite ways to beat winter blues with your homeschool? If so, share in the comments below ☺
