The 10 Best Winter Activities for Your Preschool Classroom

Does this sound familiar to you? 

While everyone else is out singing carols and decking the halls, you are barely keeping your head above water, because you’re trying to do all that plus prep all of your lessons and activities for the first week back after winter break.

Just thinking about this makes me shudder. The struggle is real, am I right?

But, no need to panic, because today, I’ll be helping you get a jumpstart on your planning for the new year!

In this episode, I’ll be sharing with you aaaaaall my favorite preschool winter activities plus everything you need to start the new year on the right foot.

Are you ready?

Let’s dive in!

Read-Alouds for Winter

If you want to have a successful circle time in your classroom, then these books are essential:

How to Catch a Snowman, Adam Wallace

My favorite is How to Catch a Snowman by Adam Wallace. It’s a great book for a winter themed read-aloud because you can also turn it into a stem activity. The text is also really fun and it rhymes, which the children always love.

There’s actually an entire series of these books and they’re very popular in my early childhood classrooms, as I’m sure they’ll be in yours.

The Mitten, Jan Brett

Jan Brett’s books are the gold standard of picture books to read aloud. No early childhood classroom would be complete without a copy of The Mitten by Jan Brett. Your local library should have a copy of this for you. 

The Mitten is a must read in the early childhood classroom. It’s such a good winter themed book, and my students beg to hear it over and over again.

The Three Snow Bears, Jan Brett

Another book by Jan Brett, The Three Snow Bears is a fun read and a great tool to add some diversity to your preschool winter activities.

Snowmen at Night, Caralyn Buehner

Snowmen at Night is another fun read that you can read aloud to your class. The illustrations are gorgeous and the story is simple yet imaginative, which makes for a super fun read-aloud!

Circle Time Games

In addition to having great books to read aloud, you’re also going to want to have some circle time games. Inside my Winter Bundle, you’ll find two different snowman circle time games. One focuses on letter identification while the other focuses on numeral recognition. 

Activity Centers

No early childhood classroom is complete without some type of sensory table or sensory bin. For a winter theme, it’s perfect to have snow in your sensory table. 

If you live somewhere cold where it’s already snowed, then you’re good to go, you can just put real snow in your sensory bin. But if you don’t, then that’s okay, because you can use fake snow.

Feed the Snowman Counting Game

Counting games are a great way to teach your students math. For a winter theme, I really like the Feed the Snowman game, where you can “feed” a snowman “snowballs” (my snowballs are sparkly white pom poms) and count them. 

A Dramatic Play Center

Of course, you’ll need a super fun dramatic play center. For a winter theme, I like to use a hot cocoa or a hot chocolate stand. In it, I usually have all the wonderful parts and pieces to make a hot chocolate stand with my students. It’s a super fun activity, and it’s always a big hit in the classroom.

Fine Motor Games

One thing we all know as early childhood professionals is that our students need as much fine motor practice as they can get. And that’s why in the winter bundle, I have some exclusive fine motor printables that aren’t available anywhere else. 

I do a quick demo of them in the video above, so make sure to watch the episode if you want to learn more about this.

Winter Science Activities

There’s a lot that you could do for winter in terms of science activities. I have two different science units in my bundle that you can choose from for your winter theme. 

One is about animals in winter and the other is about ice and snow. Both units can be done over several weeks, and they’re loaded with fun and engaging your little learners will love.

Math & Literacy Small Group Activities

You’ll also find all the small group literacy and math activities you’ll need inside the winter bundle. These are the meat and potatoes of your winter curriculum. They are what you’re going to use to teach skills based on your students’ assessment. I explain this in more detail in the episode above, so make sure to watch it to learn more.

Winter Pattern Block Mats

You can use winter pattern block mats for a small group activity, or just put them in your math center for independent practice. Either way, they are a great tool to support the development of math skills in your preschool classroom.

Winter Geoboard Mats

The final activity is winter geoboard mats, which are perfect for developing both fine motor and math skills at the same time.

I discuss all of this (and a few more tips) in more depth in the episode above, so make sure to watch it to learn more!

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

Get my Winter Bundle

Discover my Winter Book List

Visit here for my Winter Song List

Discover more winter activities