Surviving Snow Day School Closures (just)

Today we are on Snow Day number 2 and have just been told that our schools will be closed tomorrow too. Obviously, for the children this was met with many whoops of joy, for me it’s mixed emotions. I love the opportunity to spend more time with the children but working from home means that my working day doesn’t just stop. I worked as much as I could but with three little people at home, it wasn’t easy.

Snow Day No 1

Snow Day

Yesterday we had lots of fun in the snow, we played out with our neighbours in the morning, throwing snowballs, building snowmen, sledging (albeit on a flat surface) and chasing the dog around. Lillie was the first one to come back in the house because her fingers and toes were so cold, about 40 minutes later she was followed by Ollie whose fingers were ‘dropping off’ and Albie finally came in about an hour after that as he was playing with one of his friends from school and a couple of the neighbour’s teenage children.

Back in the warmth, we decided on a DVD day but since nobody could decide on one film to watch together they all separated into their respective bedrooms to snuggle under blankets with snacks and warm drinks. I had the bonus that school pack-ups had already been made so I didn’t need to take a break to prepare lunch.

Snow Day

With lunch out of the way and the sun shining outside, the Beans and I decided to take Bramble for a walk on the fields to get some fresh air and it really was fresh! They enthusiastically made Snow Angels and chased Bramble back and forth. Even though we were wrapped up, our short walk left us all with painfully cold fingers and toes. We popped to the local shop for sweets because I thought that would help to take their mind off the cold but they were so cold they couldn’t keep their hands out of their pockets long enough to eat them.

Snow Day No 2

Games

We were unsure as to whether the school would be closed today or not but alas it was! So it was off with the school uniforms and on with the play clothes. The Beans decided that today they didn’t want to play out in the snow, the pain of yesterdays chills was obviously still fresh in their minds.

I decided the best form of entertainment would be to set up some ‘invitations to play’ so I started in the dining room with our Playdoh box. This worked a treat and kept Lillie and Albie entertained for a good 90 minutes. They even got the Dyson out and cleaned up after themselves when they had finished – bonus!

Snow Day

In the lounge, I set up some word game fun with our Bananagrams and PairsInPears which went down a treat. Lillie and Ollie played Bananagrams together whilst Albie and I played PairsInPears. Albie and I began with putting down a letter tile which he then had to add the next two letters in the alphabet. Once we had reached as far as we could go I asked Albie to fill in the missing spaces. Next, I gave Albie 3 and 4 letter words and asked him to make up rhyming words with the remaining tiles.

In the Playroom, I set up Playmobil worlds and left them to it. Despite Playmobil being advertised as a ‘preschool’ toy, it’s actually something which all of the Beans love to play with and for the most part, they actually play well with it together.

As Snow Day No 2 was drawing to a close, I received an email from the school to say that school would be closed again tomorrow so I need to get my thinking cap on again but here’s a few ideas on my list so far;

  • Baking (who can resist cakes in cold weather)
  • Junk Modelling (the benefit to our recycling collection being postponed today means we have plenty to use)
  • Education City or Espresso learning games (only problem with this is that they need my laptop to do it)
  • Jigsaw Puzzle-a-thon – I’m thinking since the Beans are all so competitive I am going to choose age appropriate puzzles and set them a challenge to see who can complete (a) their puzzle in the fastest time or (b) the most puzzles in an hour.
  • Snow Diary – I’m keen to keep them ‘working’ so perhaps I will get them to write a snow story or draw a snow picture to show their teachers what we did this week.
  • Snow Experiments – now this isn’t something you can do every day so perhaps we will make use of this abundance of snow and ice to do a couple of these experiments.
  • Write-off any plans to work and just enjoy spending time with the Beans.

How do you survive the Snow Days?

SURVIVING SNOW DAY SCHOOL CLOSURES (JUST)

2 thoughts on “Surviving Snow Day School Closures (just)”

  1. It looks like you have been having great fun! We will be on day 3 of the snow days…Tomorrow I need to go shopping. Tesco aren’t delivering to my area and then we are going to do some baking x

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