Winter resources for keeping students busy during the coldest time of year sound great! I mean, recess has to be indoors and this means keeping students engaged is even more stressful than normal.
In the meantime, how many of you have extra time to create new items? Let me do the work for you! I have so many winter resources to share with you today!
In this post, for your convenience, you may find Amazon Affiliate links to resources. This means that Amazon will pass on small percentages to me with your purchase of items. This will not create extra costs for you at all! It will help me keep this blog running!
Let me give you a quick glance!
- STEM Challenges
- Escape Rooms
- Math Sheets
- Reading and Writing
- Task Cards
I told you I had a lot of winter resources, so let’s take a closer look!
STEM Challenges
These two challenges are perfect winter resources, wouldn’t you agree? Especially if you live in an area that does not get a lot of snow like we do!
The challenge with snowmen is to build a model that uses the materials well. We used newspaper and toilet tissue to create the body and then decorated it with paper from our scrap box.
With snowflake designing, I made a trip to the Dollar Tree to grab cotton balls and cotton swabs and bedazzling jewels and glitter. We made a fabulous bulletin board using our finished snowflakes.
You can see those cotton balls and cotton swabs in the above challenges, too! The igloos worked best using cotton balls, although we did try packing peanuts. We also learned to use heavyweight paper as support for holding up our igloo arches.
The ski lift challenge is one of my favorite winter resources. I strung a rope across the lab and we hung our finished ski lift chairs across the room. It was really awesome to see all the little skiers! The rules of this task make it more challenging than you would think. The lift chair has to have a safety bar that opens and closes. Our favorite part was decorating our skiers in goggles and helmets!
Escape Rooms
I have three different winter escape rooms. These are all so fun for students and I love making them. I just cannot make them fast enough for my students!
I have a traditional winter escape that uses boxes and real locks. Another is printable only. And the third is completely digital.
Winter Sports
In this winter resource students complete three tasks. At the end of the task, they find a lock code that opens a locked box. Inside the box, they find the next task.
This escape room is all about winter sports and the STEM Challenge that is part of the resource is the Ski Lift Challenge!
There is some prep with this one – printing, laminating, and organizing the materials with the locked boxes. #winterfun
Escape the Blizzard
This escape room is the printable version. Students complete four tasks and earn a “snowflake” after each task. When they successfully collect 4 snowflakes they have escaped the blizzard.
The prep for this one involves only printing. There are no boxes or real locks.
The tasks include math, using a secret message, and matching words to categories.
Math Winter Resources
Both of these math resources have ten worksheets practicing many skills. My favorite part is that I included trivia and facts on the heading of each sheet! These skill sheets are perfect for those long winter afternoons or for days you must have a substitute.
Reading, Writing, and Task Cards
The Snowflake Flipper booklet is a great way to keep students busy and learning. They will create a seven-page mini booklet all about snowflakes!
This is a fabulous way to introduce or reinforce your student’s knowledge of a science topic. This Little Flipper is also perfect for a follow-up after a STEM Challenge! (Maybe the snowflake design challenge!)
The Print and Read set has four passages covering skiing history, famous athletes, and some unusual sports that your students might like to try. You will love the ease of this print and read resource! And, it is available in a digital format, too!
Polar Task Cards
This set features a magazine- -style set of reading passages and the task cards feature questions about the text features used on the newspaper pages. Basic comprehension questions are on the task cards, too.
I do have a free sample of this set with one page of passages and six task cards.
This set is now available as a Boom Set! Same great content with passages spread over several slides and task cards on each slide. Students click on multiple-choice answers and advance to the next slide. Try the preview that’s on the resource page.
I hope you love all these winter resources and I know for sure grabbing some of these will save you time. Let me know which one is your favorite!
Just click on any of the images to see these winter resources and you might enjoy these blog posts:
