Now that Christmas has been and gone and all the Christmas activities have been completed, you might feel tempted to start thinking ahead. Spring will eventually come bringing lots of exciting new themes. But don’t forget about winter yet! We still have a couple of months that you can use to teach fun winter themed vocabulary and games. Make the most of the cold weather indoors or outdoors with some activities that are just a little bit different from the ones you do all the rest of the year. These are my favorite EFL ESL winter activities for children that I’ll be using in my classes for the next two months or so. Craft, games and winter songs that are suitable for all ages and all levels of English. So enjoy the snow, get the hot chocolate on and let’s learn all about winter!
EFL ESL Winter activities for children – Indoors
When the weather is cold and wet and you’ve got a class full of cooped up kids to entertain, it can sometimes be difficult to think of stimulating and worthwhile activities. So here are some ideas for you.
Make hot chocolate
This is a really easy and fun activity to do, even if you don’t have access to a kitchen. You can find a recipe here. You’ll need some cocoa powder/chocolate and sugar (or a ready prepared hot chocolate mix), a kettle to boil water and whatever toppings you want to add (whipped cream, marshmallows, chocolate flake sticks etc.). Check with parents first for allergies. As with all cooking activities, discuss and drill the ingredients and equipment you’re going to use before starting. Then you can start making the hot chocolate together.
Measure out the ingredients and mix with hot water being very careful not to burn anyone. Pour into mugs. Then let the kids choose their toppings and say “I would like ….. , please”. Then you can drink it together. There’s even a Hot Chocolate song to learn if you wanted to make this into a longer activity.
Play a dress the snowman game
Get the kids moving around with this fun game to practice clothing vocabulary. You’ll need lots of different clothes but you can just use the kids’ own outdoor clothes if you want. Divide the class into two teams and choose one child from each team to be the snowman. Give each team a pile of clothes. Then, as you call out the different items of clothing, “put on a scarf, gloves, pullover, etc.”, the kids on each team have to take turns to dress the snowman. The winning team is the one that finishes all their clothes first. Once they understand the game, they can take turns to be the ones giving instructions too. If you want a song to sing with this activity, you could use Put on Your Shoes by Super Simple Songs.
Winter crafts
There are so many winter craft activities you could do in your class. These are some of my favorites that are easy to do and don’t need too many special art supplies.
- Make an egg carton snowman
- Winter tree finger painting picture
- Painted penguins story stones
- Make ice ornaments – this is my absolute favorite, so much fun and so beautiful!
EFL ESL Winter activities for children – Outdoors
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where it’s snowy, get everyone dressed up in warm clothes and get outside into the snow. If not, it’s not a problem, there’s still a lot you can do outside.
Winter scavenger hunt
I’ve done scavenger hunts before in summer outdoors lessons but there’s no reason you can’t do this in winter too. Make a list of things that you can typically see or find in winter and give this to the kids to complete. You could have things like: frosty grass, an icy puddle, a snowman, footprints in the snow, a Christmas tree. Adapt it to whatever you think they’ll be able to find in your country. If they can’t physically take the object with them, ask them to draw it or take a photo.
Snow model pictionary
We’ve done it with drawings, we’ve done it with playdough and now it’s time to play Pictionary using snow. Can the kids in your class guess the word from the snow model? Take turns choosing a word, making a model and seeing who can guess it first.
Blindfold snowballs
This is a fun way of practicing giving directions. You’ll need a target, something like a big stone or a tree. Then blindfold one of the kids and let the others give her or him directions to throw a snowball and hit the target: left, right, up, down, go forward etc. You could play this in class or outside as well with a soft sponge ball if you don’t have any snow.
Build a snowman
The classic thing to do in the snow but this can still be a useful activity to practice English. Put the kids in teams and get them to build a different part of the snowman one at a time. Which team is fastest? Alternatively, ask each child to build the most original snowman. Once they’ve finished, they can describe their snowman to the rest of the class.
If you’re going to be doing activities outside and it’s cold, don’t forget to make sure the kids are well wrapped up and dry. When you’ve finished and are back in the warm, hot chocolate is always a good idea!
You can find more ideas for winter activities in my Top 10 Winter Songs. Alternatively, have a look at my Let’s Build a Snowman lesson plan. What activities do you like to do in winter? If you’ve got any great ideas, please leave a comment to share them with other teachers. If you’ve enjoyed this post and would like to keep up to date with new ideas and activities, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page or sign up for email updates below.