Productive winter activities for your children

(NC) – Some Canadians can’t stand the winter. They’d prefer to stay cooped up indoors with their blankets, laptops, and remote controls. But a parent’s passivity – along with the winter blahs – often gets passed down to children as well. Avoid turning your little ones into vacant-eyed and uncommunicative teenagers.

Play, learn, and act with these fun activities to stimulate young minds and expand their world:

1) Start a business.

• Play – Brainstorm ideas together for kid-friendly business start-ups. Some suggestions include: bake sales, dog-walking, pet-sitting, snow shoveling, or selling crafts. Have fun creating posters or flyers to promote the business.
• Learn – Your child will learn the value of money and hard work through this experience and will enjoy the quality time you spend with them in their business venture.
• Act – Invest in your child’s business and reward them with praise, regardless of whether the business succeeds or not.

2) Explore ethnicities and cultures.

• Play – Have a multicultural week, where you participate in a different culture each day. Visit cultural niches in your city, sample different foods, and learn simple phrases in different languages.
• Learn – You will be helping your child to become more open-minded and understanding of other cultures.
• Act – Visit an international children’s charity website like Christian Children’s Fund of Canada www.ccfcanada.ca and consider sponsoring a child of a different ethnicity. Your child will be able to develop a relationship with someone their own age halfway across the world. This will also help them to become more informed about other countries as they write to their new overseas friend.

3) Develop their inner artist.

• Play – Give your child a variety of art materials such as clay, markers, crayons, paint, stencils, or charcoal along with various types of paper and watch as their imaginations run wild. You can also teach them to use a camera and send them on photography assignments.
• Learn – Your child will express their creativity and develop confidence in their abilities.
• Act – Take your child to the local art gallery for ideas or encourage them to give their masterpiece to someone else to brighten their day.

Support Our Sponsors