10 Fun Outdoor Winter Activities for Kids

Feeling stuck inside this winter? Here’s some fun activities to get you outside!

1. Go on a scavenger hunt. We have one set up for you already, but when you finish that one, you can make your own. Make a list of 10 things to find, and head out on a photo hunt in the yard or neighborhood (bring a friend or adult along if you need a safety buddy). Come up with fun ideas like “two leaves of different shapes” or “a hole in a tree that a squirrel could live in” or “a pond or stream”. When you get back, have a warm drink and snack to celebrate and share pictures!

2. Have an outdoor tea party. Bake your favorite cookies, bring stuffed animals, dolls, and action figures outside for their tea party. Bundle them up, and serve hot cocoa instead of tea!

3. Learn a constellation! On a clear night before bedtime, bundle up and look for planets, stars, and look at the moon with binoculars! Use an app like StarFinder or SkyView that allow you to hold up the phone and see constellations and planets that aren’t visible past the light pollution or clouds. Maybe you will catch a shooting star!

4. Draw chalk art on a sidewalk or driveway. You can write positive messages, design a hopscotch or exercise path for strangers, or make “stained glass” chalk art with tape and different colors. Just make way for people using the sidewalk!

5. Make outdoor ornaments to hang from trees or windows. Find pinecones and stuff them with peanut butter and roll them in birdseed for the birds, or weave together sticks, vines, and leaves for ornaments to just hang from branches.

6. Make a fairy house. Use your imagination with mulch, rocks, sticks, seeds, and leaves, to create miniature paths and houses. Fairies move a lot, so just build a new one if it falls apart quickly—that just means the fairy stopped taking care of it, and is waiting under a leaf nearby for a new spot!

7. Go on a magnifying adventure! Take a magnifying glass and see what life looks like on tree bark, leaves, dried up flowers, or even concrete or bricks! Make notes, and come inside to draw what you saw.

8. Participate in Montgomery Parks Bingo this February and choose from 24 adventures in our local parks! Not local?–check your own Parks websites and see what fun activities they have for you.

9. Make ice suncatchers. Use a pie pan or any plastic tub from your recycling bin, fill with water and arrange natural materials collected on a walk or in the yard to decorate it. Loop a ribbon into it that will freeze in place as hanger, and leave out to freeze on a cold night, or pop in the freezer. Hang it outside as a suncatcher the next day. You can add berries or birdseed to feed the birds or squirrels as it melts!

10. Take your parents or grandparents on a walk. These days, adults need a little encouragement to go outside. Maybe you can be their guide—how far will you go? Where will you take them? Maybe you can design a scavenger hunt to send them on?