Snow Day inside ideas for you, the crazed parent!

This is the fourth day in a row you've been inside. You've baked everything you thought you could. You've done about a billion coloring pages. You've watched every decent video you own. Now what? Well first off, the snow finally arrived so there is the ability to actually go out and make a snowman and have a snow ball fight, but that could last an hour tops right? Jessicakes thought she'd help those in the North Texas who've been iced in to the point of going crazy. Here are a few ice/snow day inside ideas, that maybe you haven't thought of yet...

Put on a Show: Gather costumes, props, etc. Have each child write down a location, character names, and action, place them in separate bags. Have each child pull one slip from each bag. Then have the children write their own script based on those three things (help younger children write these things down). After the scripts are written, each child gets to direct their production. For added fun, video tape the performance and have a big “movie premiere”!

·      Colorful Cupcakes: If you have a box of vanilla or white cake mix on hand whip up a batch. Divide batter into several bowls. Dye each bowl a different color. Place spoons in each batter bowl. Allow children to use various colors to make rainbow cupcakes. Swirl with toothpicks to make a marble effect. Bake the cupcakes (keeping each child’s separate).  Ice the cupcakes with any frosting you like. Then allow children to decorate with sprinkles, candies, cereal, etc.

Brownie/Cookie Experiments: Any box or bag mix will do, but make the dough for brownies or cookies. Divide the batter between the participating children. Pull various extra ingredients from the pantry and refrigerator: chocolate chips, peanuts, candy, sprinkles, cereal, cherries, chocolate syrup, pickles, whatever. Then allow the children to create several new kinds of cookies or brownies (cookies work best because you can roll the ingredients in with the dough). Bake the cookies and let them cool a bit. Then break each cookie into enough pieces for everyone to try. Keep a record of who made it and what was in it. At the end let everyone vote for his or her favorite.

·      Board Games for Bored Kids: (This game works best for more than four people). Maybe you have made every puzzle or played every game you own, but there is a good chance you haven’t played them all at the same time. Pick at least four board games and divide the children (or teens or adults) into at least two teams. Have a member from each team sit at a board game (choose games that are familiar to everyone), not all board games need to be occupied. Have a buzzer or bell ready. When you start the round, each player gets a few minutes to play the game. Then when the buzzer sounds the players move to the next game and start to play that one, they play that game a few minutes, then the buzzer sounds and they go to the next one. You can decide how long to make each round as well as the length of the entire game. The point is to see which team goes further (or wins) the most out of every board game.  Here is an example with Team A and Team B:

                      A1                  A2                                

Trouble--Connect Four--Go Fish--Uno--(Back to start)

                                        B1                  B2                                

You can even throw a Wii or video game in there as well. The point is to get kids moving and keep things fast paced.

Snow Ice Cream: 

Ingredients

          1 gallon snow

            1 cup white sugar

            1 tablespoon vanilla extract

            2 cups milk

Directions

When it starts to snow, place a large, clean bowl outside to collect the flakes or gather the snow from a safe-to-eat area. When full, stir in sugar and vanilla to taste, then stir in just enough milk for the desired consistency. Serve at once.

from: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/snow-ice-cream-ii/Detail.aspx

Other ideas: 

• Watch home videos, children love to see themselves on the television and teenagers loved to be embarrassed :) 
• Have children create their own board game and then get the family to play it. 
• Use this time to organize old photos. Let children help sort them by occasion. If you find a few extra repeat photos of pictures children like, let them create a scrapbook page or decorate an old photo frame. 
• Indoor hide and seek is always fun and change the rules up--make it where everyone has to crawl or jump to their hiding spot and for "it" to track people down. 
• Create a fort from chairs and blankets. Decorate it with hand drawn pictures and other items of the children's choosing. 
• Gather any craft items, newspaper, paints (washable), etc. and allow the children to create their own art. Each art work needs to be titled and then put on "display". 

If you enjoyed this blog post or found it helpful, please leave a comment and/or click on the ads that support this blog. Thanks and happy snow day!

~Jessicakes