It’s that time of year. You know it all too well – the time just after Thanksgiving when everyone has had a taste of time off and is just itching for winter break. I feel antsy for it. Do you? How about your students? It’s not an easy time of year to keep everyone engaged, but here are several resources with winter activities for many different grade levels. You’ll find everything from English Language Arts and Google activities to Science, STEM, and more. Ready to find some good stuff? Let’s go!
40 of the Coolest Winter Science Experiments and Activities
Study snowflakes, grow the Grinch’s heart, make candy can slime, create an igloo and so much more with WeAreTeachers’ 40 fantastically fun wintery science experiments. Experiments for every age are offered, and these will work great at home or at school! I like these experiments because they reinforce core concepts and/or encourage creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking. Take a gander and try some out! If you’re a high school teacher in a K-12 school or near an elementary school, see if your students could lead some of these experiments for elementary students.
Winter Activities Middle School Students Will Love
Here you’ll find 25 activities on everything from probability to poetry, and they’re all geared toward middle school students. Among my favorites include poinsettia PH paper, a gumdrop structure challenge, a hot cocoa experiment, and probability with dreidels. There’s a lot here, and hopefully there’s something of interest for you and your students to try out!
Winter Read Aloud (Free Digital Winter Reading Activity)
This snow-themed reading activity on “The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder” by Jennifer Findley is best suited for grades 4 and 5. She includes free tasks cards for the story along with an answer sheet. Also, if you don’t have the book, she has a YouTube read aloud for you! The lesson focuses on questioning and includes “engaging and interesting topics like avalanches, snowboarding, ice fishing, extreme winter sports, snow globes, and more!” Sounds like something your students will love, right?
Googley Wintertime Activities for Kids
This blog post is from 2017, so some features within Google have probably changed, but I just LOVE these activities from Control Alt Achieve. Each one is linked to a blog tutorial with step-by-step instructions for you and your students. Some of the activities include video tutorials as well. In this article, you’ll get links to the following:
- Build a Snowman with Google Slides
- Decorate a Holiday Tree with Google Slides
- Wintertime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings
- Holiday Greeting Cards with Google Drawings
- “12 Days of Christmas” Guided Google Sheets Math Activity
- Pixel Art Ornaments with Google Sheets
- Wintertime Emoji Rebus Stories with Google Docs
- Holiday Lights Writing with Google Docs
Five Winter Themed and Fun Holiday Classroom Activities
These activities do require you to sign up for a free Nearpod account if you’ve not already signed up with Nearpod. This article provides you with winter themes for your presentations, a virtual drag-and-drop snowman building activity, gamified winter activities, lessons on various holidays celebrated in winter, and some winter-ific core subject lessons. You’ll want to check these out! There is something for every grade level.
Winter Speaking Activity for Spanish Class
Students love “Guess Who,” and it’s a great way to reinforce vocabulary and get in some oral language practice as well. This free download from Srta Spanish will help you do just that with Spanish language learners. You do have to input your email address to recieve the download via email. You get a printable and a digital version which are both bilingual English/Spanish.
I hope you find something useful in these activities that will spark some winter fun no matter where you live, or what the weather’s like. If you try any of these out, let us know how it goes in the comments. Happy holidays!
Additional Winter Activity Resources from TechNotes
Two Brand New Winter Breakouts and Bonus Puzzle
STEAM Powered Winter Activities
Fun with a Holiday FlipHunt
Winter Resources for Elementary
Magical STEAM Project
Celebrate Season Holiday Websites
Holiday Website, Apps, and Extensions
Five Holiday Seesaw Activities
Merry Merry Breakout
Augment Your Holiday with These iOS Apps
Making It Mery (Animated GIFs)
Tips Tricks Tech Tidbits: Holiday Resources, REBUS
