There’s Snow School This Week – Activity Ideas Please!!
Well – it’s day 5 of being snowed in here in the Devon hills. It’s snowing again today and looking unlikely the village school will be open again tomorrow (it was closed Thursday & Friday last week). Even if it does manage to open, Devon council is not running the school buses and there’s no way we can get out of here as the little country lanes are extremely icy and snowy. We only have a little car (see my blog There’s Snow way we’re getting a 4×4) so we’re here for the forseeable future unless the council decide to come and grit/clear the lanes?
This is my four year old, Aleck, above making bread as we’ve run out of fresh – and it keeps him busy and entertained (and tastes delicious too!). We would love to hear your ideas on activities to do with a four year old boy and an eight year old girl.
With Tasha (our eight year old) I’d love to hear of any ideas which will help her literacy, numeracy etc. She had some workbooks but has used them all up. Any good websites out there we could use – get her brain defrosted a bit. We can go out and play in the snow in short bursts but when it’s not sunny (like today) it’s very very cold out there.
Please add your comments below, thanks ever so much.
[...] loaf of wholemeal bread too (and it was scrummy, thanks Aleck). Please see my other blog over at Tish Tash Toys if you can suggest anymore ‘things to do at home on a snowy day’ with the [...]
Well, my boy’s a bit younger and my girl’s a bit older, but Sally used her day-off to do some yummy baking… here’s the link: http://www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk/2010/01/snow-day.html
Thanks for the link Tim, we’ll be checking out Sally’s baking later on – they’re both up to their eyes in jigsaw puzzles at the moment!
We have been stuck in for a week too, so my girls (3 and 6) have been getting crafty. They have made loads of things with old Christmas cards, bird food fat balls, robots using all the paper recycling stuff which hasn’t been collected, salt dough models and last but not least have been on Educationcity.com. You can get a free trial usually but it only costs £25 for a year and has fun games.
You can download lots of worksheets for literacy and numeracy from My Child, which does lots of online education stuff.
In terms of activities, when we were kids, we loved doing plays and performances on rainy days, complete with dressing up and taking photos. We made our own newspapers and magazines from blank paper.
Flea’s four and our at home activities include painting rocks from the beach (we’ve got the most enormous bucket of collected rocks in the utility). Also, setting up a tent inside and playing camping. This can literally last all day and is one of Flea’s favourites. And if you’ve got wool in the house, Flea loves making strings of pom poms – I love making red, white and green and then using them as garlands at Christmas!
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My girls were so bored, so we took a walk out yesterday, bought them tons of felts/crayons colouring books spent most of yesterday colouring,
but today, they have my living room turned upside down, dining table is out, chairs etc, and they have made a massive tent with every duvet cover, fleece blankets that I own!
So yes my living room looks like a bombs hit it, but they are having the best time. We are now prepping up lunch so they can have it in there.
xxx
Thanks Kate, my kids absolutely love crafty stuff too. We have a stack of old Xmas cards and they love ‘glueing & sticking’ so will keep that one reserved for Monday or Tuesday. Salt dough always good isn’t it, will definately do that. I may even have some clear varnish kicking about somewhere to seal them when they’ve been painted.
Thank you Sally – I will check out My Child, sounds great. My kids also like doing plays – and little family performances singing, dancing and magic shows! You’ve reminded me of their dressing up box though, which hasn’t been played with for a while and could do with a few new outfits. I’ve got a bag of clothes ready for the charity shop so might be worth looking through there, getting the sewing box out and making a couple of new costumes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/ – for your daughter
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/ – tons of printables
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/ – does exactly what it says on the tin
Mask making is one activity
Homemade jigsaws on card/paper
Make skittles using empty pop bottles and paper balls – safe for inside the house
Potato printing
Your daughter could make her own story book – concertina a piece of paper to make an easy book
Bubble prints – mix washing up liquid, water and food colouring in water, place paper over the bubbles to make a print – useful as wrapping paper
Hope that helps xx
Thank you so much Sarah – brilliantly brilliant weblinks. Can do most of your ideas except bubble prints. Pipes have now frozen and we are without water!!!
damn forgot about the lack of water – melt some snow? lol x
[...] about a 90 year old woman slipping in her garden near Barnsley and dying of hypothermia – click here to read (but get the hankies ready). Poor [...]
Why not use old magazines to make collage pictures on cardboard (old cereal boxes etc) and then cut them up to make jigsaws
Perhaps ask your daughter to make her pictures around a theme or concept to explore ideas – maybe wildlife, the planet etc would help. And perhaps as her to cut the jigsaw pieces in certain shapes ie hexagons or circles with a diameter of 4cms etc.
Trying to learn a language might be fun – http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryspanish/ – perhaps just to say hi, I’,m …. and I am …. years old. Nothing too scary but still fun and reminds you of the sunshine – you could research Spain and make linked items – have a spanish day (or any country)
Alphabet games – find things in your house for the whole alphabet – a scavenger hunt with a theme.
http://www.ecofriendlykids.co.uk/ – Eco-friendly ideas
http://schools.wearewhatwedo.org/ – another good thing
I have a friend who works for a school in Kenya (I mentioned it before) – she does work sheets etc that don’t need any other resources than a pencil. I’ll email her and ask for some age appropriate ideas incase she has something that can be emailed to me.
Hope all is alright!
Hmm lack of water – I asked Wu about it as he is a mountain dweller, duke of Edinburgh guide bloke and he said eating snow will lower your body’s core temperature which is bad but you can drink snow if you heat it (but you should add some water to stop damage to your pans when you first start warming it) It is vital to only drink white snow (no colour at all – so perhaps get in fresh from the sky). Any colorization, especially red or orange, can mean bacteria is present.
Hopefully this will give you some extra water to do bubble painting etc if you don’t fancy drinking it
Fantastic ideas Katy – I particularly like the alphabet scavenger hunt, we’ll do that tomorrow. We have a big pile of magazines and pritt stick on standby most of the time – but loving the make your own jigsaws. Will check out the eco friendly ideas too. Thanks ever so much x
Don’t worry Katy – we think we can bail some water out of the tank by the bore hole/well! There’s some water in there – it’s just not being pumped down the field to our house.