11 Fun Family Winter Activities You Can Do In Your Backyard
With a little creativity, your own backyard can be turned into a winter wonderland of fun activities for the whole family and your Springfree.
min read
When winter begins and the temperature starts to fall as quickly as the snow, it’s easy to find excuses to stay inside. With a little creativity, your own backyard can be turned into a winter wonderland of fun activities for the whole family and your Springfree.
1. Build a snow fort! This classic winter activity offers hours of fun, building walls and roofs, or digging out a snow heap with a warren of tunnels. Have the kids build rival forts for a snowball fight, or, even better, collaborate on a mega-fort. Use beach buckets or empty ice cream tubs to create parapets, snow bricks, and other design features.
2. Create snow paintings! Did you know you can make a non-toxic “snow paint” by mixing food colouring and water in squeeze bottles from the dollar store? It’s easy, inexpensive, and a lot of fun! Make the snowy yard your canvas and encourage the little ones to paint a masterpiece. Make sure to take a picture before the next snowfall covers it!
3. Go for a warm-up bounce on the trampoline. Did you know that Springfree Trampolines are designed for action in all four seasons? It’s true! Go for a warm-up bounce whenever you’re feeling the winter chill—it’d a great way to get exercise. (And don’t forget to see our website for tips on winter use and maintenance.)
4. Design a snow maze. You can design a maze by packing snow into lines on the ground and creating a massive, twisting labyrinth of walkways between the lines. Challenge your kids to design their maze on paper beforehand, or improvise and build your maze as you go!
5. Design magical creatures’ footprints in the backyard. The next time you get a fresh snowfall, head out to the backyard and design your own jumbo animal tracks by stomping out patterns in the snow. Think of big dinosaur footprints, long snake tracks, or pointed talon tracks of a giant bird. You can turn your own backyard into Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! Afterwards, head inside and draw pictures of the creatures you’ve created.
6. Trampoline snow dodgeball! If you get a good batch of powder snow, you can play a game of snow dodgeball on your Springfree trampoline. Have jumpers take turns bouncing on the trampoline while those waiting their turn make snowballs to gently toss over the net enclosure. Remember not to throw too hard, and to only use powder snow (and not heavy/wet snow).
7. Make colored ice gems! Buy water balloons from the dollar store and fill them with water and different colours of food colouring. Leave the balloons out overnight, and the cold weather will freeze the water, burst the balloons, and leave behind a brightly colored gem of ice. Clean up the burst balloon pieces and use the ice gems to decorate your snow fort or create a treasure pile at the centre of your ice maze.
8. Host a cocoa station. You can set up thermoses of hot chocolate in the backyard on a chilly, starry evening, or warm up after play activities with hot chocolate in the house. Have marshmallows, whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and cinnamon standing by as delicious toppings.
9. Have a snowman contest! Bundle up in your warmest hats and mitts and get to rolling up jumbo snowballs to make your very own snow people! Dig out the costume trunk for extra props for transforming your snow creations into knights, fairies, pirates, or whatever else your imagination comes up with!
10. Go sledding! If you’ve got a slope in your backyard or in a nearby park, sledding is one of the most fun ways to take advantage of a fresh snowfall. Or, take turns pulling the sled around the backyard. You can even try a variation on the snow maze by setting up a track in the backyard and seeing which team can navigate it the fastest.
11. Knock over the flag! For a fun variation on capture the flag and snowball fights, try playing “knock over the flag.” Set up flags on opposite ends of the yard, a half-way line in the middle, and divide into teams. The goal is to knock over your opponents’ flag with a snowball. If you cross the halfway line, they can try to hit you with a snowball and send you back to your flag before you can rejoin the game.
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