Bring it Inside! – exploring snow indoors

playing with snow inside

Snow starting falling where we live right on the Winter Solstice (December 21).  It melted but made a beautiful return on Christmas Eve … and we’ve had snow on the ground ever since.  My kids were SO excited to go outside and play in it … go sledding, build snowman, and have snowball fights.  Unfortunately the day after Christmas, Henry came down with a horrible cough and fever.  So … no playing out in the snow for him.  And since I needed to be inside with him … no playing outside in the snow for Honor, my 3 year old daughter, either.

However … I brought the SNOW inside for us to play with and explore!

bring the snow inside

I used a large clear plastic container and scooped up a bunch.  We started off playing by using a small bucket (a princess one, of course!) to make snow castles.

making snow castles

Then Strawberry Shortcake wanted to come play …

Strawberry Shortcake in the snow

After some playing with the dolls in the snow (they just LOVED stomping down the castles!), Honor and I started to explore how the snow melted.  First we held a little clump in our bare hands and saw how quickly it melted when we closed our fist.  I talked to Honor about how warm our bodies are and how cold the snow is.  Our hands got cold and the snow turned into water.

She requested that I fill a small container with water and we continued are exploration.  Honor noticed how quickly the snow melted when it was added to the room temperature water.

melting snow in water
Then I got out the liquid watercolor paints and we enjoyed squirting the colors all over the white snow.  (okay, I think I might have enjoyed this part a bit more than her … it was SO fun and looked SO cool!!!)

painting snow inside

We also had fun experiments with seeing how a clump of snow absorbed the colored water.  It was really cool to see the color climb up the snow … like magic!

snow absorption

After that Honor did some “cooking” …

cooking the snow

And put her foot in the snow …

barefoot in snow

The entire activity of bringing the snow inside sure was a hit!  It made being stuck inside much easier to handle.  Here’s what the snow looked like when we were done playing …

done with playing inside with the snow

And this is what it looked like the next morning …

all melted!

Have you ever brought the snow inside to play before???  Here’s some other posts on playing with snow inside …

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Laura Hutchison

Laura Hutchison (aka PlayDrMom) is a chubby kid turned competitive figure skater tween turned high school pom pon girl turned MSU Spartan turned grad student turned Mrs. HutcH turned Dr. turned Mom. She adores living in the Mitten, is addicted to Diet Coke, and firmly believes that ice cream is a main food group.

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Comments
  1. Holli

    This is great…especially for my two-year-olds. Just waiting for our first real snow here in the Chicagoland. Love this idea, though, when we do finally get some!

    I’d love for you to share this over at my Winter Bucket List Idea link-up along with some of the other family and toddler friendly suggestions.

    http://www.fullhands-fullhearts.com/2012/12/winter-bucket-list-ideas-and-link-up.html

    Thanks and Happy New Year!
    Holli @ Full Hands, Full Hearts

  2. Tammy @ Housing A Forest

    Thanks for the mention! I will be featuring your delightful post this week on the Kids Co-op at Housing A Forest. I would love for you to stop by and check it out!

  3. Deb Chitwood

    I hadn’t thought about bringing snow indoors when a child is sick … great idea! I love your variety of creative activities. I’d love to play with snow like that myself! I was happy to feature your photo and post in my 25+ Snow-Themed Sensory Tubs at http://livingmontessorinow.com/2013/02/05/25-plus-snow-themed-sensory-tubs/

  4. Mihaela

    So much fun! 🙂 Love that she even put on her mittens! 🙂 Thank you for linking on Tots at Play. Pinned and shared in Facebook! 😉

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