From skating to snowplay, get out there and make this winter weather a family affair. While we wait for the next great snowfall, let’s get out there and start having winter fun (and yes, some of these are great for snowy days).
1. Make Snow Art. Fill a spray or squirt bottle with water and food coloring. Get outside and start spraying a masterpiece. Remember to switch up the colors!
2. Make maple snow candy. Think Little House in the Big Woods. Collect a bucket full of freshly fallen snow (it’ll come, we promise!). With the help of an adult, kids can heat real maple syrup in a saucepan over low heat until it just begins to boil. Place snow into a mixing bowl. Very gradually add the syrup, stirring constantly. The syrup hardens into candy.
3. Roll the biggest snowball. Start with a small ball of snow and continue rolling until you run out of snow, See who has the biggest snowball. Put them together if possible and make a snowman or snow fort.
4. Ice bowling. Fill plastic 10 quart liter bottles and one plastic gallon bottle with water and food coloring and freeze over night. Set up the smaller bottles (pins) and bowl with the gallon bottle. See how many you can knock down.
5. Go sledding. Our list of best places in Rhode Island listed here.
6. Build a fort and have a snowball fight or hang out there and tell winter tales.
7. Look for animal tracks. You can get some great tips from Roger WIlliams Park Zoo on how to identify animal tracks, and here’s a fun activity to study your own tracks at home.
8. Feed the birds or go birdwatching. Make a simple pine cone bird feeder. Make your own birdfeeders out of pine cones, peanut butter, and birdseed.
9. Go ice skating. It’s great exercise for all ages, and you can do it at a local outdoor rink (Providence and Newport have great ones), or one of many municipal rinks, as well as some college and university rinks, which have public skating hours posted.
10. Head out on a winter hike. Bring snacks and a thermos of hot soup and/or cocoa. Explore a wildlife refuge. Try it with snowshoes.
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Mmmm, fresh snow today in Providence. For dessert tonight, we experimented with maple syrup and snow.
Our first version was like a maple flavored snow cone (actually more like a really good Hawaiian shave ice). The maple flavor was so much better than the artificial flavor and colors you usually get in a snow cone. (an older snow post calls this “snowcream”, see https://kidoinfo.com/winter-the-season-of-snow/ )
After a phone call to a gourmet friend, we made our second version (described above and referencing Laura Ingalls Wilder). which resembles, taffy or hard carmel candy formed on top of snow. To make the hard candy version, the maple syrup had thicken by cooking longer, so that it sits on top of the snow and doesn’t melt into it.
Then there was one final version, when the maple syrup cooked into something like crystalized sugar in the pot and sprinkled onto the snow, which wasn’t as good and also bonded to the spoons like glue.
In the end, really nothing better than pure maple syrup and pure snow…it’s like the difference between concentrated orange juice vs. fresh squeezed.
great ideas (and so fun to see the pinecone bird feeders)! the site re-do is wonderful!
cheers and cookies!
xo
elyse