6 Fun & Easy Snow Day Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers
Looking for fun snow day activities for toddlers at home? These 6 fun and easy snow day activities for toddlers & preschoolers will keep your little ones entertained, help them develop key skills, and make the most of the snowy season!
Right now, we are in the middle of a big snowstorm – the perfect time to try some exciting winter sensory play ideas for toddlers! I think last we measured, we had 10 inches and we’re getting more this weekend. Yikes!
So as you can guess, we are in full-on snow mode and the boys are loving it. Taking a toddler and a preschooler out in the snow is definitely not for the faint of heart. Between the snow pants, gloves, and winter boots struggle, it can feel like a workout before you even step outside. But once you’re out there? Snow day fun begins!
Since it looks like we’re going to have days (maybe weeks) of snowy weather, I put together a list of the best indoor and outdoor winter activities for young kids. These are mess-free, low-prep, and packed with sensory play benefits—perfect for little ones stuck inside on a cold day!
If you’re looking for some easy, low-prep activities to keep your young kids entertained during those long winter days, look no further. I’ve compiled a list of easy, affordable, and OT-approved snow activities that you can do with your kids today!
6 Fun & Easy Snow Day Activities for Toddlers
- Snow tic-tac-toe
- Snowy Scavenger Hunt
- Pretend Play
- Painting
- Snow “sand castles”
- Ice building blocks
Snow tic-tac-toe
A snowy twist on an old classic. By gathering a few sticks, leaves, toys, or whatever else you have lying around outside, you can set up a quick tic-tac-toe board in the snow for your kids (and adults, too!) to enjoy while outside. This fun snow day activity for kids is simple to teach, quick to play, and fun for all ages.
Why it’s great (from your pediatric OT friend):
- Develops turn-taking and problem-solving skills
- Improves visual-motor coordination
- Keep kids active and engaged outdoors
For more details on this game including how to play and game variations, click here.
Snowy Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are one of the best winter activities for young kids! Whether you do it in your backyard or a nearby park, this fun, interactive game keeps little ones moving while helping them build key developmental skills.
You can either create your own list or print my winter scavenger hunt printable, bundle up, and head outside!
This activity has SO many benefits and helps to develop an incredible amount of skills including visual perception, fine and gross motor skills, following written and verbal directions, and many more. For more details on how to put together a scavenger hunt, variations, and more, click here.
Pretend play in the Snow
Pretend play is key for childhood development, and snowy days offer a unique way to spark imagination! It also helps to develop many of the life skills that they will need as they grow into adulthood. Snow days are a great time to help facilitate those play skills in a unique way. If your kids are like mine, they can get bored playing with the same toys over and over again. And although being bored is a good thing, there are times when we as parents can “re-introduce” their same toys in a new way to spark their creativity.
So on snowy days, gather up a few of your kids’ favorite toys (that are water resistant, of course) and take them outside. Since we have two boys, we have mostly used cars, trucks, and construction toys but the options are endless! My oldest enjoys using his construction machines to push and scoop the snow into piles and has also made snow “roads” for his cars and trucks, too. The beauty of pretend play is that it is open-ended, requires little to no adult guidance, and has numerous benefits for children.
Snow Painting
Want to try mess-free snow day crafts for preschoolers? Using colored water to paint is a cheap and it’s an easy and fun way to introduce art activities to young toddlers who may not be ready to use real paint yet. You can quickly make water “paint” by using water and food coloring (we try to avoid artificial dyes so we use Watkins, which you can buy on Amazon or the Simple Truth brand of food coloring from Kroger). Then gather up your art supplies and head outside!
In addition to paint brushes, we used droppers (link here), sponges, squirt guns (link), or even old plastic medicine syringes to create colorful “paintings” in the snow. Using a variety of tools provides incredible benefits for little ones with developing fine motor skills.
Snow “Sand” Castles
Okay, this is honestly my favorite activity on the list and requires no prep at all (besides digging out your beach toys in the garage…if you’re anything like me). When I first presented the idea to my boys, they were a bit skeptical. But as soon as I made the first “snow castle”, they were hooked. Now we don’t go outside without them!
My oldest (who is newly 4) has had a blast imagining that we are on vacation at a beach, carrying buckets of snow to the edge of the “ocean”, gathering more “sand” for his castles, and creating elaborate snow cities complete with bridges and moats. The kid who used to beg to go inside after playing outside for five minutes in the snow is now begging me to stay outside for just “a little bit longer.” As a big advocate of outdoor play, this makes my mama heart happy.
Taking a toy, game, or activity that is typically used for one purpose and using it in another way helps to promote imaginative play and creativity skills in children. It also fosters a sense of wonder and ingenuity in our kids that can translate to other areas of life.
Ice “building blocks”
As a pediatric OT, I love using building blocks in therapy sessions with my youngest students. They are fun, versatile, and promote a wide range of fine motor and visual motor skills such as dexterity, grasping patterns, visual spatial awareness, and many more. Of course, if you have wooden building blocks like these, you aren’t going to want to take them out in the wet snow. And even if you have plastic blocks, spending time drying them all off one by one after you’re finished would be a daunting task.
So what’s the answer? Easy…Ice cube building blocks! Turn frozen water into a colorful, stackable fun! This is a fantastic winter sensory play ideas for toddlers that improves grasping, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination. With very little prep, you can create “blocks” that can withstand the weather and require no clean up. Leave them outside when you’re finished and they will melt away with the rest of the snow.
We used the same natural food coloring that we used for the paints, mixed together a few different colors, poured the water into ice cube trays, and sat them outside overnight to freeze. The next day, we were able to pop out our blocks and take them back outside for an afternoon of entertainment, especially for my youngest who is almost 18 months. While we’ve only used ice cube trays so far, you could use muffin tins or any other freezable container to make blocks of different shapes and sizes depending on what you have on hand. The options are endless!
Make Snow Days Fun & Memorable
While snow days with littles can be tough at times, we hope our 6 fun and easy snow day activities for toddlers will bring some winter joy and lasting memories for the whole family. Let me know in the comments below which snow activity has been a favorite for your family!
Link to all the supplies
Click here to get our Winter Scavenger Hunt Printable
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