44 Winter Activities To Do In January
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January can be a long cold, dark month. The excitement and celebrations of Christmas are a distant memory. How do you fill the hours of light you have without resorting to a screen of some kids. We all know the novelty of new toys wears off far too quickly. So here’s a list of some fantastic ideas to help.
Let’s Get Started.
1. Drink hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.
2. Stargaze on a clear night and find a constellation. We checked out this website for lots of wonderful information.
3. Adopt a tree and care for it throughout the year.
4. Build a den. Try a wig-wam in the woods or throw some covers over the table.
5. Watch a movie snuggled up together. We love the BFG movie at the moment.
6. Have a snowball fight (with cotton balls if you don’t have snow)
7. Read a novel together. Harry Potter, David Walliams or Roald Dahl books are a good start. Or these books by Anthony Horowitz that my son loves!!
8. Ski, snowboard or sledge. This is the one we have for all 3 kids and it’s fantastic and so fast.
9. Plan a vegetable garden with your kids.
What flowers, fruit or vegetables could you grow. Buy seeds and make a plan. Read this post on how kids can grow beetroot to help you start. Look out for more growing advice over the coming weeks. Sign up to the Newsletter to make sure you don’t miss anything!
10. Visit a library and while away the hours reading.
11. Have a shopping mall treasure hunt. Who can find a red bag, blue hat, box with a red star etc.
Ready for the next 11???
12. Charity shop challenge who can but the best thing for the least money. You could also see who can donate the most toys. After Christmas you might need a clear out of unwanted toys.
13. Take a bus to somewhere new. Find a town with a new park, pond, woods or another attraction to explore.
14. Visit a pet store and learn how to look after your favourite animal. Our pet store sometimes runs animal care sessions- where you and learn and pet the animals.
15. Go to a free museum. There are lots of different kinds. We love the children’s museum near us.
16. Visit a toy shop and see what’s new. If the kids are going to make loads of noise pushing buttons and trying out new toys they’d better do it out of your house?
The next one is my favourite fall back!
17. Bake a sweet treat together. Our next bake will be these amazing looking mint chocolate cupcakes. What could you try?
For something different, have a look at my Courgette Bread Recipe yum.
18. Do something nice for a friend or neighbour, run an errand, or make a craft.
19. Watch the full moon and make up a story about the man in the moon. Why not try making a space model from paper mache.
20. Have a trip down memory lane and look through old photos. We also try to spend some time re-watching home movies from Christmas’s when the kids were younger.
21. Have a game night with snacks. My kids are just getting to a good age for Monopoly and older games. There are lots of variations for younger kids. We love frozen junior monopoly. It’s still almost Monopoly but its been simplified for younger kids. It’s such a good game but doesn’t take 5 hours to complete.
22. Go for an extra early walk and watch the sun rise and listen to the birds sing. We try to do this at least once a year. Just stunning.
We’re half way, have you tried any?
23. Make homemade bread and soup. Try butternut squash and sweet potato or lentil soup. Mmm
24. Feed the birds. Try making a winter buffet tree for the birds. Here’s a post to get you started.
HOW TO MAKE A WINTER BUFFET FOR BIRDS
25. Make a salt dough ornament. We do this for Christmas each year but it would be lovely to make a new ornament each year.
26. Make a snow globe together. We loved this Kit.
27. Find some animal tracks.
28. Build a snowman. Use some pillows if you haven’t got snow.
29. Make a stain glass window picture
30. Have an barbecue and toast marshmallows
Last lot coming up!!
31. Try 3 new recipes. Sweet or savoury. Buy some ingredients and see what you can do.
32. Climb a tree. Kids love it! Or better yet plant a tree. Winter is a psrfect time to plant most trees but especially fruit trees. Give it a go.
33. Feed some squirrels. We buy a big bag of monkey nuts (peanuts). They love them!
34. Make a scrapbook of the year gone by. Take some time and reminisce over all the fun you had.
35. Go Ten Pin Bowling. Who will win?
36. Write and perform a puppet show. Use teddies if you don’t have puppets
37. Make puppets! There are wonderful kits you can buy or just use for left over felt or material and make your own. This post by Amanda gave us loads of ideas!!
38. Make a paper Mache snowman. The kids love all things papier-mache. Just layer a balloon with up to 6 layers of newspaper and lots of PVA glue. Once its dry you can pop the balloon inside and paint it. You could turn it into a pinata!
39. Catch a snowflake on your tongue.
Just a few more..
40. Play chase in the woods. Hide and seeks another good one. Just have fun and set boundaries so no one goes too far. Here is another post with more ideas for fun in the woods.
41. Find a different park/woods to explore. Take a picnic or a flask of soup and see where the day takes you.
42. Playdoh snowmen. Make your own playdoh here or why not try cloud dough. So easy and you’ll have lovely soft hands.
43. Play alphabet eye spy. A is for apple tree, B is for Blue Bin etc.
44. Write a story and read it to someone special. You could choose characters from other stories or make your own. Spend an afternoon snuggled up dreaming about all the fun stuff your characters could do.
So what do you think? What do you have planned for the rest of Winter. I’ll be spending some time planning out our allotment for the start of Spring. What about you? What do you love to do in January?Why not download a list of your own so you can try something different?
It’s a great list. I’m not sure about the “Climb a tree.” But I think I’ll try most of them with my kids.
Hi Joscelyn. Thanks for commenting. Im not the best tree climber either but it doeant need to be a big one. Enjoy.
Great ideas! Love the one about going through old Christmas movies- so sweet. And we keep meaning to try cloud dough!
Hi Ruthy. Cloud dough is great fun and not as messy as youd imagine. Leaves your hands smelling lovely too!
We do lots of reading and hot chocolate or baking treats in the wintertime. I like the idea of a play dough snowman because my kids adore snow but we only get enough to make a snowman maybe once a year if we’re lucky.
Thanks Jordan, play dough snow man are so cute. Why not try cloud dough too it looka more like snow and smells devine. X
What a great post! Now that the holidays are over it’s hard to decide what else to do in the actual winter. These are great ideas.
Thanks Echo. Im glad you fknd it useful. Happy New Year!