Winter Activity Guide
Activity - Outdoors
GradesK, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Science
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Provided by The Nature Conservancy
What it is
- This activity guide from Nature Lab by The Nature Conservancy features five winter activities students can do to explore the outdoor environment around them and enjoy the season.
- Students will do some winter stargazing, create feeding stations for migratory birds, gather twigs to identify local trees, explore animal tracks in the snow, and make a winter diorama from a shoe box.
Teaching tips
Positives
- These activities are simple and low- to no-cost, emphasizing the use of found and natural materials.
- Students will love being outside and exploring nature in their local area.
Prerequisites
- It may benefit students to be familiar with or have a guide book of the plants and animals that grow and live in their area.
Differentiation & Implementation
- To make math and biology connections, teachers can set up the bird feeding station by the window and graph the number of birds that visit the station or have different feeders with different seeds to see which birds visit them.
- As an art project, students can create winter nature journals for the journaling activities in this guide. Students can upcycle old cereal boxes and paper to create journals.
- To make connections to creative writing, students can write stories about the animals they track in the snow, imagining what they are doing and where they are going.
- To make connections to climate change, teachers can discuss the impact of climate change on migratory patterns or snowfall, and discuss the importance of biodiversity during the twig activity.
- Many of these activities can be connected to Sustainable Development Goal 15, Life on Land.
From the scientist review
This resource from The Nature Conservancy’s Nature Lab is a winter-themed activity guide designed to get students exploring nature through the seasons. It includes hands-on indoor and outdoor activities—like animal tracking, birdwatching, and creative journaling. While it does not include original data, this guide is a great addition to classroom discussions.
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