Winter Wonderland Blog Hop: 10 Winter-Themed Activities

I'm so excited to present the Winter Wonderland Blog Hop. For the next month (Jan. 13th-Feb. 13th), 35+ bloggers will be posting about a winter-themed activity, craft, recipe or printable. You can find a calendar list at the bottom of this post of the dates and bloggers who'll post on those dates. Each day I'll pop in to update the link to show the title of the blogger's winter-themed activity so check back often to beat the winter doldrums with super fun activities from some amazing bloggers! 

To kick-off the Blog Hop, I'm posting about 10 of our favorite winter activities! 

1. Build Your Own Snowman Muffin Tin Meal - Our favorite muffin tin meal of all time! 

2. Snow Glad We're Friends Cards - Send a card to a friend just for fun!

3. Winter-Themed Sensory Bin - Use rice as snow for a fun way to explore!

4. Coffee Filter Snowman - Perhaps the simplest snowman you'll ever make!

5. Bring Snow Inside! - If it's too cold (or dark) to play outside, bring the snow inside!

6. Simple Snow Play Dough - Try our simple snow play dough recipe!

7. Snow Tracks - Find and explore animal tracks in the snow!

8. Tot School: Snow Edition - Fun ways to learn with snow-themed activities!

9. Fingerprint Snowmen - Make a village of snowmen or turn them into a card!

10. Build a Snowman - Last, but certainly not least go the traditional route and build a snowman in the snow. Find fun items around the house for the face, arms and buttons, or use Mr. Potato Head pieces!

CALENDAR LIST OF POSTS:
January 13th: The Iowa Farmer's Wife - Introduction Post
January 14th: B-Inspired Mama - Snowflake Drop DIY Baby Toy
                    Kid World Citizen - Ice Sun Catchers
January 15th: Love Play Learn - Snowman Felt Story Board & Song
January 16th: KC Edventures - Fun with Kids Books and Winter Activities
                    Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails - Winter Bath for Kids
January 17th: Milk and Cuddles - How to Make Snow
January 18th: Putti's World - Craft Foam Snowman
January 19th: Nurture Store - Bake a Snowman - Cake Recipe for Kids
January 20th: Creative Playhouse - Homemade Cold Snow
January 21st: Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Packing Peanut Snowflakes
January 22nd: Teach Preschool - Snowman in a Bag
                     This Reading Mama - Snowflake Window Wonderland
January 23rd: Housing A Forest - Creating Colorful Icicles
January 24th: Royal Baloo - How is Snow Formed?
                    Home Learning Journey - Potato Print Penguin
January 25th: Two Big Two Little - Comparing Different Types of Fake Snow
January 26th: Ready Set Read - Winter Word Work
January 27th: CraftoArt
January 28th: The Outlaw Mom Blog - Easy Sticker Snow Globe
January 29th: JDaniel4s Mom - Snowflake Mobile
January 30th: Creative Family Fun - Polar Bear Masks
January 31st: Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Snowy Day Felt Board
February 1st: Caution! Twins at Play
February 2nd: Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Groundhog Day Round Up
February 3rd: Blog Me Mom - Cotton Rounds Snowman Craft
February 4th: Mama Miss - Snowflake Stained Glass Mobile
February 5th: Living Montessori Now - 25+ Snow-Themed Sensory Tubs
                    Ingles 360 - Playing with Ice
February 6th: Glittering Muffins - Peanut Snowman Magnets
February 7th: The Pleasantest Thing - Winter Song: Today is Monday
February 8th: Here Come the Girls - Create an Inside Winter Wonderland
February 9th: 3 Dinosaurs - Paper Roll Snowman
February 10th: Train Up a Child - Penguin Sensory Bin
February 11th: Little Artists - The New Year of China
February 12th: The Chirping Moms - Snow Inspired Crafts
February 13th: My Nearest and Dearest - Winter Picnic

What's your favorite Winter-themed post? Share your post with us in the comment section!

Kool Aid Play Dough

We made Pink and Green Mama's Kool-Aid Play Dough recipe and it turned out great! She mentioned that she'd use less oil next time so I used about a tsp less than her recipe.

Sweet P picked the colors and went for pink for the first batch. She picked yellow for the 2nd batch, but it didn't really turn yellow so we added red to make it orange and it ended up the same color as the pink! So we ended up with one HUGE batch of reddish pink play dough! Sweet P wasn't disappointed since her favorite color is pink at the moment! The Farmer had a great time playing with it, too!

Store in a baggy in a cool, dry place or in the fridge.

NOTE: There are lots of options for Kool-Aid Play Dough, but I chose this one because it didn't call for cream of tartar (I was out). Came out great!

Sprout playing with a zippered bag of play dough!

Pretending to be Rudolph!

Coffee Play Dough

We took NurtureStore, The Imagination Tree and Sun Hats and Wellies' Play Dough Pledge and got crazy with some play dough this week!

At the start of the week we played with some chocolate play dough we've had since Valentine's Day (and it's still awesome!). We added some animals and they played in the "mud".

On Wednesday, after swimming lessons, we added coffee grounds to our chocolate play dough to make Mocha Play Dough! It smelled DIVINE and the texture was pretty cool, too! I originally thought we'd add about a 1/4 c, but we ended up using about an 1/8 c. of coffee grounds.

I've had a Starbucks sample cup for months now (it's our granola scoop) and this was the perfect way to use it! We grabbed her coffee mugs and coffee pot from her play kitchen, some straws, a tea ball and plastic scissors (cutting play dough is such a great activity for kiddos!).

She made herself some coffee and told me I wasn't old enough to have any (which is a common response to her question of whether she can have some of mine). She used the Starbuck's cup and a straw, and pretended to drink her coffee.

We used the tea ball to make "hair" and she thought that was hilarious.

We've had an awesome time this week with the Play Dough Pledge. Look for a post about our Kool-Aid Play Dough experience coming soon!

Did you take part in the pledge? I'd love to visit your posts! Please leave a link in the comments!

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