Preschool Toddler
WinterGross Motor Activities
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Anyone with kids can tell you that having a few fun activities stashed in your back pocket for a rainy day can end up being a life saver.
Even though it’s December and Christmas is only a week away, we’ve been stuck inside for the past few days. No, not because of snow or extremely cold temperatures, but because of rain. Lots and lots of rain.
It’s not warm but it’s not super cold either, although the rain does make it feel colder than it is.
And if you have kids yourself, well then you also know that it doesn’t take long for cabin fever to start setting in.
Earlier this week we needed a fun activity to get us up, moving, and forgetting the fact that we can’t go outside and, as it turns out, bowling will do just that.
Now, take that a step further and make those bowling pins look like snowmen and you’ve got yourself a fun winter game for kids that will make you forget all about the fact that you’re stuck indoors!
Making your pins is super simple! You’ll need:
- Cardboard tubes (we used 6 but you could make any number you like)
- White construction paper
- Pipe cleaners
- Pom poms
- Markers
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun
The first thing you’re going to want to do is cover your cardboard tubes in white construction paper. Just cut the paper to fit and then glue it on, making sure that you trim up the edges so that your pins will sit upright.
For your pipe cleaners, you can build your snowman however you like, but we used ours to make a scarf and set of ear muffs for each snowman. Gotta keep them warm right? :)
To make the earmuffs and the scarf for each snowman, you’ll need a white pipe cleaner and a colored pipe cleaner for each color that you plan to use.
Cut a section off of both of the pipe cleaners that is about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long. The smaller of the 2 sections of your colored pipe cleaners will make the ear muffs while the larger section along with the longer white section will make the scarf.
Every snowman needs a scarf right? To make ours, we put a colored pipe cleaner and white pipe cleaner together and twisted them to make a fun spiral effect.
Since the glue on your cardboard tubes/construction paper should now be dry, take a couple of markers and draw faces and buttons onto your snowmen. You’ll want to be sure to give them that carrot nose as well!
With your hot glue gun, go ahead and stick your smaller colored pipe cleaner onto the sides of your snowman. This will be the base of his ear muffs.
Add your coordinating pom poms with a little more glue and his ears will stay nice and toasty.
Finally, just take your twisted pipe cleaners and wrap them around your little bowling pin before giving them a quick twist.
Make a couple more to go along with this one and soon you’ll have a whole set of adorable bowling pins!
We happened to have a little plastic bowling ball from a toy bowling set and so we used that but you could easily use any ball that you have!
All you have to do is set them up and knock them down :)
Not only is this the perfect activity to get the kids up and moving but it is perfect for reviewing colors and numbers at the same time! In fact, we used them for quiet a bit more as we set them up in different shapes so that we could find out which shape would be the easiest to knock down!
It’s an activity that quickly cure that cabin fever and one that we’ll be playing with again and again.
