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Winter Resources for Busy Teachers

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!

Winter Resources students will love- this includes escape rooms in three styles, math worksheets, reading passages, task cards, and STEM challenges! Check this post!

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

It's winter time in the fabulous month of January! Do you want to build a snowman? Here’s a great indoor solution to something kids love! Build a snowman STEM Challenge! And this one is a challenge! My students were surprised at all the problems they had to solve!
This challenge is to build a model of a snowflake using various supplies. Students must work to make the shape symmetrical, beautiful, and detailed. I also added the requirement that the final product should be a stand-alone model so they could be hung. We also added a twist to this design by having students use a budget and purchase the materials needed.

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.

It's January and winter time! Here’s another great way to integrate winter studies with a terrific STEM challenge! Using only two materials students build an igloo model and problem-solve through the challenging roof and doorway! Your kids will love this challenge and you will love the ease of setting it up!
Here’s a perfect STEM challenge to celebrate winter and winter sports! Students create a ski lift chair and the skier! Each group will divide into two teams- one to build the chair and the other to design the skier. Students are so creative in adding ski outfits to these models!

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.

What a fabulous way to celebrate sporting events of the winter! This Escape Room covers many sports and with tasks that include math, using maps, and matching descriptions to images. This is an Escape Room that involves solving riddles and tasks to find clues to open a locked box. Students work together to find the keywords that lead to the needed information to unlock a lock.

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

An Escape Room event in the elementary classroom is a great way to practice so many skills. This one includes math, categorizing topics, and deciphering a secret code. Students don’t even realize they are practicing! What is different about the paper/pencil escape room? It is simple! Students complete tasks to earn a method of ‘escaping’. The prep for the events with NO LOCKS is minimal- just making copies. No locks or boxes!

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

It's January and snowing! Are you looking for a quick practice sheet for math skills? This set will do it! Here’s the story- sometimes we are at the end of a STEM challenge and the groups that finish more quickly need something to keep them busy. So, I decided to make sets of math sheets to match the STEM topic (Winter STEM - Winter Math) and keep those students engaged in review skills in a subject we all love!
Are you looking for a quick practice sheet for math skills? These winter themed math sheets are perfect for January! Here’s the story- sometimes we are at the end of a STEM challenge and the groups that finish more quickly need something to keep them busy. So, I decided to make sets of math sheets to match the STEM topic (Winter STEM - Winter Math) and keep those students engaged on review skills in a subject we all love!

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

If you can’t beat the cold weather in January, then just join it! And if you don’t live in a snowy place this Snowflake Little Flipper is even more perfect for you! Create a seven-page mini booklet with your students. This flipper book is about Snowflakes!
Do you love wintertime and snow! Kids sure do! They are also sure to love these reading passages about winter sports. The four passages cover skiing history, famous athletes, and some unusual sports that you might like to try yourself. You will love the ease of this print and read resource! This set is not a digital resource.

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 of Boom Cards features 44 cards all about the Polar Regions. Students will read about animals, the Arctic and Antarctic, scientists, and more. The reading passages have the text features marked. Students will answer questions to identify the text feature or its purpose and respond to basic comprehension questions. These digital self-checking Boom Cards are such a great way for students to enjoy learning about the polar areas of the earth.
This TERRIFIC set of 48 Task Cards will address many things: nonfiction text features, nonfiction reading, and applying what has been learned. Students read nonfiction passages about the polar regions and use text features to complete task cards. The reading passages are designed to resemble magazine pages with colorful photos, clipart, and sections.

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:

Winter Resources students will love- this includes escape rooms in three styles, math worksheets, reading passages, task cards, and STEM challenges! Check this post!