Snow In July

Trying to come up with some new themes for our recreation program this summer, I had the idea for a Winter Wonderland Week. I got the idea from the old "Christmas In July" parties that people sometimes used to have. Usually we have to stay away from holidays that are connected to specific religions, so I thought, what about doing winter-themed things? Last summer it was extremely hot, and our program is housed in a 1940's era building with no air conditioning, so I thought maybe doing wintery things would cool us off a little. Luckily it hasn't been that hot this summer... but we still had lots of fun!

How do you celebrate winter in July? Here are the things we did. (I even have pictures for some of them!)

Sensory activities... always important in a program for kids with special needs! I made several different sensory bins that we kept out all of the time. I filled one with Epson salt, and added some clear gems from Dollar Tree and some snowflake-shaped gems I found on Amazon. (It looked much better at the beginning of the week, but by the time I took this picture some of the kids had mixed some other random sensory things into it!)

We had two more bins that were filled with instant snow. I bought one package of "Grow Snow" for one, and it came out really nice... much softer and more powdery than most instant snows I've used. There wasn't a lot of it in the package, though, and I didn't have time to order another package. But I read that you could make a similar instant snow from the stuff that is found inside diapers! You just have to cut open the padding of a diaper and shake out the powdery stuff that is inside it. We opened up about 24 diapers to make this box of snow... after shaking the powder out, you add water and stir it up until it becomes white and fluffy. Who knew diapers could do that? Some of the staff didn't like this as much as the Grow Snow stuff, because it was a little more gelatiny. 

On one of the days, I also used the old sensory stand-by, shaving cream! I just called it snow cream. The kids loved it. Two of them actually got onto the table and tried to make snow angels in it. Luckily shaving cream is basically soap, so it didn't stain their clothes or anything! 

Activities: We did many throughout the week. Some I have photos of, and some I don't.
Snowman Bowling... I taped snowman faces to some water bottles that were filled with rice, taped a white table cloth down on the floor to represent snow, and used pool noodles to separate the lanes.

We played Pin The Nose On The Snowman! I think one kid cheated.

We played "Cold Snowball." I don't have a picture of that, but it is played exactly like Hot Potato, but we used a fabric snowball instead of a potato. I even got the snowball wet and put it in the freezer for a while before we played, so it was cold like a real snowball!

We had an indoor snowball fight. I shelled out nearly $30.00 for a set of Snowtime Anytime snowballs. It was worth it! They are soft but have a texture similar to real snow, We used one for the Cold Snowball Game also. I was a little worried that my kids, many of whom have autism spectrum disorders. wouldn't be too enthused about the snowball fight. I envisioned kids standing there looking lost, with snowballs in their hands. But most of the kids really loved it! I also added a rule that, if they got hit by a snowball, they had to turn around three times while saying "Snowman, snowman, snowman," which would get them back into the game. That way there were no "losers" or "winners," and everyone got to play for as long as they wanted to. 

The kids went "ice skating" in the gym. They stood with a paper plate under each foot and just slid around the gym. I wasn't there, but the person leading the activity said the kids enjoyed it... although they got exhausted fast!

We also went sledding indoors. Although I duck taped towels to the bottoms of sleds so that they wouldn't scratch the gym floors, they somehow scratched the gym floors anyways. Be warned. We had to move that activity to the hallways. 

We usually do a cooking activity once a week. This week, the kids made banana snowmen. This was a quick and simple activity. You just take three thick slices of banana and put them on a skewer, the long way so that if you looked at it from the front you would see three circles on top of each other, like a snowman. Pretzel rods served as arms. The kids decorated their snowmen with M&Ms and chocolate chips. I even found candy eyeballs at the grocery store! The kids seemed to like this activity, AND they ate the banana slices as well as the candy! If you are a stickler for healthy foods, you could substitute raisins for M&Ms.

During many of the activities, we listened to snow-themed songs, to get into the mood. It was a challenge finding winter songs that weren't actually about Christmas, but I managed to come up with a decent playlist. It included classics like Jingle Bells, Suzy Snowflake, Sleigh Ride, Walking In A Winter Wonderland, Let It Snow, Baby Its Cold Outside, and Frosty the Snowman, plus some newer songs I found on Amazon like Ingrid Michaelson's "Winter Song." 

I think that is pretty much it for our Winter Wonderland Week! I usually love planning arts and crafts, but there are two high school girls in charge of the arts and crafts aspect of our program. They tend to choose projects that involve adding some embellishments to an already-nearly-finished project (like gluing on eyes and sequins to snowmen that were put together for them ahead of time) whereas I prefer more open-ended projects that allow for creativity. 

Anyways, I think I will probably use at least a few of these activities during the actual winter season of my school year teaching job. Of course I will put a learning spin on them. For instance you could put sight words on the snowman bowling pins and have kids read the words they knock down, or have kids ice skate around as they "read the room." 

Time for me to take a nap now... for the rest of the night!