Winter Activities

These weeks are cold and dark so it’s important that we try and keep busy having fun so lockdown doesn’t start to overwhelm us!

Let us know in the comments how you are doing and if you need someone to reach out to please drop me a dm and I will try and help if I can. We are all going through the same thing and I saw on facebook earlier a reminder which said

“It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been living in this pandemic, please don’t feel like you should be used to it by now. Being isolated, being away from our loved ones and the little things that made our days enjoyable isn’t something we get used to. You are doing a great job, be proud of yourself”

I thought that was an in important thing to remember.

Anyway here are some of our latest lockdown activities and some tuff tray inspiration for you!

Tuff Tray Ice Rink

Toddler G is a bit sad that we haven’t had any snow so I have been doing winter themed tuff trays for him. He loved this one!

We covered the tuff tray in foil and I froze some toys in ice. I used left over mince pie cases to freeze them, they worked really well! I also put a big load of ice cubes on the tray.

I popped some cotton wool and some salt on the tray as well as a jug of hot water and a pipette.

Toddler G loved skating the figures around on the foil and we learnt that adding salt melts the ice and also makes it a lot of grippy. He also loved melting the ice with the warm water. We even attempted to make an igloo out of the ice cubes but that was very hard so we just made a wall!

Instant snow

The second of our wintery themed tuff trays. I bought this instant snow from Amazon and I was really impressed.

Some of the instant snow feels too much like slime or jelly but this one was really fluffy. You only need a small amount to have a lot of snow and the consistency was great to play with. I was impressed at how much fun Toddler G had with this.

I popped the snow on the tray with some toys and then let him decide how he wanted to play.

Gradually more and more vehicles were added but he kept coming back to play with this all day and I have popped the used snow in a container so we can use it again!

Foam Ice Cream

I meant to try this with shaving foam but purely by coincidence I found this in Aldi the day before so thought I’d give it a go.

This stuff is amazing. I don’t work for Aldi by the way but seriously we loved this foam. It is so thick you can actually mould it into balls and bounce it on the floor.

I filled up containers and added a bit of food colouring and then added sprinkles and some cocoa powder for Toddler G to add to his ice creams.

You don’t have to use real food for this but I had some sprinkles in the cupboard and we don’t actually like them so I thought it was a perfect way to use them up.

You could use chopped up grass, coloured paper etc to decorate your ice creams.

I popped a couple of scoops on the table and let toddler G do whatever he wanted, except eat the ice cream obviously!

You could use the foam to make cupcakes instead . Let me know if you find this foam and what you think of it! It also smells nice and is super easy to clean off!

Painting ice cubes

Easy peasy activity, super quick to set up and lots of fun.

Just pop a load of ice cubes on a tray or large plate and provide paint and brushes. Toddler G really enjoyed painting these and he has got very into mixing colours at the moment and learning what other colours they make so this was the perfect activity for continuing that.

We also made faces and shapes with the painted ice cubes and then he wanted to melt them with warm water again.

Just a hint, if you are using a tuff tray then I would recommend not letting all the cubes melt if you are using a lot of them as a tuff tray full to the brim of icy water is not easy to empty and you may drop it all over yourself and the floor!

I hope some of these ideas inspire you, I loved seeing some of your pictures of ice lanterns I was sent last week, they looked amazing and thank you so much for letting me know you liked the blog!!

More ideas will be coming soon so watch this space and stay sane and healthy funky fans. Sending you all love.

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