🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🌱 Environmental Stewardship — Children who have meaningful outdoor experiences consistently grow into adults who care about and advocate for natural environments — making early nature connection one of the most impactful environmental education investments.
- 📸 Documentation & Memory-Making — Documenting adventures through photographs, collections, and journals teaches children to value their experiences, practice observation, and create personal records that become treasured family artifacts.
- 🌍 Place-Based Knowledge — Knowing and caring about local natural places — a favorite park, a nearby creek, a well-loved hiking trail — builds place attachment and community identity that roots children in a sense of belonging.
- 🔍 Observational Skills — Slowing down to notice — a bird's behavior, a spider's web, a pattern in bark — builds the fine-grained observational attention that scientific and analytical thinking depend on.
By Lynn Moore
What do you think of when you think of snow fun? Sledding? Snowmen? Snowball fights?
What if you live in an area without snow? What if you live in a snow area and it is just not snowing? This is always a concern for preschool teachers preparing for a unit on snow. What if there is no snow? If you are looking out your window at brown grass, never fear. Plan an indoor preschool snow adventure!
Set Your Snow Scene
1. Drape a white sheet over a folding table to make an igloo.
2. Tuck white socks into (snow) balls.
3. Cut snowflakes from white construction paper. A few cuts to make V shapes from the edges will look great.
4. Tear construction paper into pieces for snow. (This is great for the pincher grasp that is necessary for writing.)
5. Use pieces of white felt to make snow drifts. As you are doing this, talk about where the snow is.
Make Some Snow Treats
1. Put miniature marshmallows (snowballs) in hot chocolate. Use leftover candy canes to stir.
2. Make a snowman snack. (Place raisins and carrots to make a snowman face on a white paper plate.)
3. Make snowman cakes. (Frost cupcakes with white frosting and use chocolate chips or other small candies to decorate.)
Let the Snow Fun Begin!
1. Use a flashlight for your igloo fire as you read snow books.
2. Have a friendly snowball fight across a masking tape line on the floor. After all the balls have been tossed, count to see who has the most.
3. Play Match the Mittens: Toss all of the family’s gloves and mittens into a laundry basket. Match the pairs as you talk about color, pattern, size, and type (gloves vs. mittens).
4. Make beautiful, pretend snow angels. Kids especially love this when Mom and Dad do it, too. This one is great for exercising those arms and legs that can get restless on winter days indoors.
Recommended Snow Books
All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle
The Hat by Jan Brett
The Jacket I Wear in the Snow by Shirley Neitzel
The Mitten by Jan Brett Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
The Snowman Storybook by Raymond Briggs
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn and Mark Buehner
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow by Lucille Colandro
Let the snow adventures begin!
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Preschool camping success factors: choose a campsite with facilities (bathrooms, access to help), plan for the first night to be rough (new sleep environments take adaptation), bring familiar bedding and comfort items, keep the day's activities low-key (no major hikes on day 1), have a flexible departure plan in case it's not working, and involve the child in every camping task (setting up tent, collecting wood, cooking). A successful first camping trip is one where you left before it fell apart — arriving home while it was still fun ensures they want to go again.
Children under 3 benefit enormously from outdoor adventure but need adventures scaled to their developmental stage: short duration (30–60 minutes), familiar or partially familiar settings, full adult proximity, and built-in sensory exploration time (touching bark, watching water, picking up rocks). Great under-3 adventures: backyard investigation, neighborhood walks with stops at interesting observations, small local parks with sand and water, botanical gardens with accessible paths, and nature playgrounds with wood chips and climbing logs.
