Surviving Winter: Super Simple Indoor Activities for Kids

Oh, Minnesota. You can be so mean. As if -40° windchill isn’t bad enough, you throw us a blizzard. A freaking blizzard!? That’s cold. (No, literally, it’s like super, terribly awful cold!)

Yeah, yeah. This is what we signed up for. It happens every year, and every year I complain about it. No, I’m not going to change it. I’ll probably live here forever, and so will my grandkids’ grandkids because, genetically, we all fear change. So, instead of griping and moaning about being trapped indoors with two kids whose combined energy levels could light Times Square, I have to get creative. Let’s be clear about one thing: I’m no Pinterest Mom. I’m actually a walking talking Pinterest Fail. So this, my friends, is my no-skills-required, make-your-own-fun list for surviving a Minnesota winter with children, a small house, and a shortage of patience and skill.

1) Make your own board game

I’m a board game junkie. Have been since I was a kid. I remember playing homemade games with my dad and cheating, errr, winning a lot. It holds a special place in my heart and it’s also partially in my wiring, so I’ve been counting down the days – since I became a mommy – that my kids would be old enough to participate in this one with me. My son and I sat down one night and got “crafty.” We ripped the back off a 12×12 board book, covered it in aluminum foil and taped the edges with white duct tape. He colored the edges while I created the path out of construction paper. I added the spaces and he filled them in with the names of his family members (in a pattern, of course). Then, to make our players, we cut strips from a cardboard Goldfish box, folded them in half and applied a cut-out photograph of each person with glue.

See? Pinterest would laugh at all of that, but I think it looks awesome, and the best part was how you actually PLAY this specific game. Roll a die, move your spaces and ask a question of the person on which you land (your own name is a CHOICE space). The night we all played as a family, I learned a whole lot about everybody, including what my kids would do if they were invisible, their favorite songs (and colors and foods and teachers and friends), and what they love best about daddy. (Then, I asked daddy what he loves best about mommy just to watch him squirm.) Have fun with it! My crew is kind of addicted.

2) Play with snow…indoors

Such an easy concept, but who thinks about bringing snow INto the house? It’s always, “Take your boots off on the rug!” or “Stomp your feet by the door!” So, this concept was definitely out of my comfort zone. But Minnesota kids should get to enjoy snow and when it’s this cold, it’s just not in the cards. So I shoveled some into a giant storage bucket (you can also load it into your bathtub) and buried bath toys and gold coins in it. The kids used kitchen utensils to dig for “treasure.” I was kind of shocked at how long this activity kept them occupied. When they finally got bored of it, we used another bucket to learn about snow becoming water (Science!? That’s also out of my comfort zone) and dyed some with food coloring to make mini snow sculptures.

Another day I did this same idea, only with blue-dyed water and bubbles. That was definitely messier, but they liked closing their eyes and “fishing” blindly with their hands. Just do yourself a favor and lay down a million towels first.

3) Watch a movie under the stars

My personal favorite activity to do on cold, snowy days is to put on my finest jammies and watch a comfort-movie on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. So to make this activity entertaining for my kids (who apparently don’t like watching reruns of Sex and the City at 10am like I do), I gave us some outdoor ambience. Our living room is tiny, so this could probably fall into the “crazy” category, but I set up a tent. An actual, real-live tent. It stretched from one window to another and you most certainly could not walk around it, but dang, it looked cool! I filled the tent with sleeping bags, pillows and stuffed animals and even brought out their DreamLite so stars could be projected on the ceiling. We ate picnic food from a cooler and sipped juice boxes as we watched Finding Nemo (or some other Pixar movie that most certainly is not Sex and the City). It was an interesting spin on my typical Netflix-binging, but it was definitely more fun!

If you don’t have a tent (or if you’re not crazy), you can build your own fort with blankets and furniture, or bring in boxes and cut out windows. A classic movie night in our family consists of an air mattress covered in soft bedding, so really, anything works. It’s amazing how entertained kids can be by the simplest of ideas.

4) Download Crazy Helium Booth

This app is ridiculous and addicting. I could not stop laughing the first time we used it and I still lose it every time I watch the videos. It’s FREE and super funny and my kids have become slightly obsessed with it. All you do is talk into the phone and it changes your voice and your look. Then you can send it to everyone you know and really embarrass yourself like we do! It’s basically how my family communicates now (who needs silly ol’ normal-people Facetime?).

Download for iPhone

Download for Android

This is an example of what you get. Thanks to my sister, AKA Super Babysitter, for introducing it to my children:

 And more ideas…

I don’t have a lot of great ideas. In fact, those four are how we spend a majority of our days at home (see why I take my kids out so much? I’m really very boring inside these four walls). But I’ve collected a nice list of simplified activities that other more brilliant minds have come up with and will share them with you here:

5) Dinosaur Ice Excavation  |  featured on Kiwi Crate

6) Create Paint Stick Dolls  |  featured on NellieBellie

7) Play Balloon Tennis  |  featured on Craftulate

8) Make a Homemade Active Dice Game  |  featured on Growing a Jeweled Rose

9) Make Indoor S’mores  |  featured on Dessert for Two

10) Go on a Bug Hunt  |  featured on No Time for Flash Cards

I would love to hear how you keep your kiddos entertained during these cold months. Leave a comment below to share your ideas with our readers. Yes, even you Non-Pinterest-Failures can contribute…I suppose 🙂 Stay warm!