Ultimate Winter Checklist To Help Your Family Thrive During Winter

The winter season with young children can feel isolating, boring and stressful, so try out these ideas in my ultimate winter checklist to help your family thrive during winter!

Winter is HARD with young children

I find winter life particularly challenging at this point in our lives, which is not surprising considering we live off grid in a camper attached to the tiny house we built a few years ago. We are raising four children, all of which are under the age of six, and I know everyone says this but I swear my kids have more energy than the average child!

So that’s why I created this ultimate winter checklist to help your family thrive during winter!

I love this list because of its simplicity. And if you are a mom, the last thing you need is a huge list of challenging tasks to complete everyday, that is why a lot of these ideas can be done on the fly and with a wide age range.

You can try a few, or try them all!

Cross out any ideas you complete to see your progress, and if your kids are like most children I know, they will be excited to complete each thing and see what is left to do as you work your way through this list during the winter season!

I’ve included the printable version you can download and print at the bottom of this post.

Ultimate winter checklist to help your family thrive during winter:

• Make snow ice cream
• Try snowshoeing
• Make fruit popsicles
• Go tobogganing
• Take a walk in the dark
• Build a snowman family
• Make a scavenger hunt for indoors or outdoors!
• Catch snowflakes in your mouth
• Try snow and ice painting using natural paint
• Hunt for chaga
• Make suet balls for the woodland creatures!
• Pick a novel and read aloud each day
• Search for future christmas trees
• Learn how to count to ten in Spanish
• Sing your national anthem
• Make homemade playdough
• Read a devotional (we are going through THIS one right now)
• Play The Floor Is Lava game
• Learn to say your favourite colour in Spanish
• Make homemade cards to hand out
• Memorize a bible verse using actions
• Have a block tower building contest
• Hold a DIY spa day
• Make cookies together
• Hold a puppet show using socks
• Find icicles outside and eat them
• Make paper airplanes
• Teach a math lesson using chocolate chips!
• Clean up garbage around your property
• Dust the house together
• Make a fort or animal den using blankets
• Play hide and seek
• Have a dance party with snacks and music
• Play Simon Says
• Learn how to make a glove bunny on your hand
• Make a small family ice rink
• Decorate a tree outside with nature friendly decorations and battery lights
• Play I Spy
• Sort and clean a child’s room with them
• Blow bubbles outside and watch them freeze
• Learn how to make an emergency survival shelter outside
• Have a fire and make Bannock
• Cut out paper snowflakes and decorate with them
• Practise your home fire and emergency plans
• Make homemade popcorn and watch a movie
• Make cornstarch clay
• Write and send a letter to a loved one
• Create an obstacle course in the house
• Host a tea party
• Make a no sew fleece blanket
• Play hot potato with a real warmed up potato
• Set up a flannel board and cut out shapes and figures
• Make a collage using magazine clippings
• Have a crazy hair day
• Make paper mache
• Create a storybook using magazine clippings
• Make noodle necklaces
• Teach kids how to peel hard boiled eggs
• Decorate gingerbread cookies
• Go stargazing
• Make paper plate masks
• Host circle time with songs and a story
• Create a treasure hunt
• Have a relay race
• Make homemade apple cider
• Shovel snow paths for toys to use as pretend roads
• Have a pizza making party
• Make snowflakes from toilet paper rolls
• Decorate a walking stick
• Create the first letter of your name using stick art and decorate it
• Make a marble obstacle course
• Make a care package for a senior in a nursing home
• Create paper dolls and scenes
• Create art on windows with dry erase markers
• Hold a book reading challenge
• Practise sight words from your child’s favourite books
• Have a toy purging day with the kids
• Lego creation contest
• Create a thankful jar
• Cut and paste crafts
• Make forts from big boxes
• Tye Dye with natural dyes
• Go bird watching
• Find animal tracks and learn what they belong to
• Make a creation using birch bark
• Try a dried orange garland craft
• Make a simple macrame feather
• Face painting!
• Make snow cones from blended up icicles
• Make boats using household items and float them in the bathtub
• Paint hard boiled eggs
• Make a rainstick from a paper towel roll
• Bake dog treats
• Make whip cream from scratch
• Try eating maple syrup in the snow
• Make butter the old fashion way
• Make a cootie catcher

In conclusion;

Pick and choose which ones suit your weather, living situation and family best, but remember to take chances and try new things as well!

Since I made this post in list form I couldn’t go into much detail on each thing or provide many pictures. So if there is something you’re unsure of just google it! (like the glove bunny on your hand. That one is worth the research, they are adorable)

I know I include a lot of snow themed activities, that’s because we have a ton of it where I live! If you do not get snow where you live try to think outside of the box for those ones or cross them out and think up your own options with your kids!

Click this PDF file to download the checklist now!

Before you go!

I make a lot of free printables available for the general reader. BUT if you would like access to my free members only hub and newsletter, please put your email into the box below.

The hub is a password protected place where all of my created content lives, including printables, checklists, e-books, instruction manuals and more! Also, you will receive one monthly newsletter to let you know about all of the new content I have created that month!

I would love to have you be apart of the members hub.

Check out my last post: Tour Our Farmhouse Bathroom Renovation