Preparing for Snowpocalypse – Activities, Snacks / Lunches, and Lessons from Children's Books

After our first winter ever with below zero temperatures and snow, and being cooped up for months in the house with no where to go and nothing to do, I deiced things are going to change this year! I am going to prepare for snowpocalypse, or as most people call it "winter," by creating fun full days based on children's books. I haven't quite completed the thought yet, but I've been pinning and googling ideas for what to do.

The plan is to start buy going to the library, checking out a bunch of books for a couple weeks, and gathering materials to make the day a blast!

I got the idea from an activity that was held at the nature center near our apartment. They had a group of 10-12 toddlers, 3-4 years old, and we learned all about worms. They started off by telling them a little bit about worms, then pulled out actual live worms and let the kids touch them and look through a magnifying glass at them. Then they read a book about worms to the kids. After that, the parents helped the kids paint a paper with rubber worms by dipping the worms in paint, placing the rolled piece of paper in a canister, and shaking it, making worm tracks all over the paper. The kids then enjoyed a treat of gummy worms in pudding and oreo crumbs. It was a lot of fun, and got my mind going of how to continue something like that into our daily lives.

So, my plan is to read a book, talk about the book, create a snack based on the book, and do an activity based on the book. I guess have a 'theme day' based on whatever book we'll read that day.

Here's an example with 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle

We would read the book:

We would then talk about different foods and how they make us feel. And as I'm brainstorming as I type, maybe do some flash cards and play a game – flash a card with a good or bad food on it and ask what they think it is. Maybe do a food pyramid, or plate, or whatever the FDA is doing now to represent healthy eating. If you have ideas, please share them with me / us!

Then, do an activity. Something I found on Pinterest was painting with different fruits and vegetables:

... maybe glue some green pom poms with a red one to look like the caterpillar. Again, if you have ideas, please share them!

And for a snack and/or lunch, make a healthy plate – maybe a sandwich with fruits and veggies, a glass of milk, cheese slices, etc. And because Addi loves grapes, she would love this treat for dessert:

Like I said, I was brainstorming as I was typing, so it'll be way fun to come up with more activities like this! I'm really looking forward to coming up with more!

If you want to follow our ventures through "snowpocalypse," I'll try to be better about posting on the blog. Also, follow my Pinterest board, Snow Day Fun / Lessons From Books, for ideas I've found and plan on trying.

Enjoy!