Winter Playtime

With the weather getting colder and our rule of not allowing the children outside if it's under 30* (and really I prefer above 32*) we loose a lot of our time playing outside. This makes the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge a little harder when you live in a northern climate. The trick to being able to spend as much time as possible outside during cold weather is layers. UnderArmor or long john's under pants and a long sleeve shirt, thick coat, boots, gloves, scarves, and hats are a must. Snow pants are recommended for the younger children. 

While we personally average between 20 and 30 hours a week outside during the summer, during the winter months some weeks we barely get an hour or two. Striving for that 1000 Hours Outside can be challenging. However, sledding and building forts are always good winter distractions. Snow ball fights, snowman building, tracking animals through the snow, making snow angels, and measuring how long it takes something to freeze outside ... all these things are wonderful distractions and can quickly turn into a science lesson (ie. What animal could have made that track? Does that animal change it's behavior in the winter? Does the animal's appearance change from season to season?). To entice the campers to play outside more during the winter time we *ahem* offer (read bribe) them with hot chocolate when they come back indoors.

Since we keep track of our hours outside from Labor Day until the following Labor Day sometimes it feels like we're climbing a completely vertical mountain to try and reach our goal. Some years we make it, some years we don't, and some years we blow 1000 hours out of the water! I add our weekly hours every Saturday evening around sunset (so the time varies every week depending on the time of year). I'm writing this on a Thursday on a week that we're only getting two days above freezing and this week we've only logged about 45 minutes so far (I'm publishing it next week though lol). We only have 262 hours as of last Saturday and I doubt that we'll reach 265 hours total this week. And that's OK! It doesn't matter if we get the most hours outside every week so long as we're healthy and get some hours outside every week. The whole point of getting outside is to get away from all the screens that surround our children every single day everywhere you go ... except for outside!

I'll admit that it's a lot easier to get the hours adding up when the weather is warmer. Usually you don't even have to do much to get the kiddos to head out of doors when the sun is shining and it's warmer. The first few snowfalls it's pretty easy to get the kids outside as well, but the novelty of snow wears off rather quickly in the north and you find yourself basically booting the kiddos out the door to play. But, while you're doing that remember that children learn best from watching us. Don't just boot them out the door, go with them! Help them build that snowman or snow fort, fall down and do a snow angel with your child, mount a full on snowball battle! Enjoy every moment you can in play with your children.

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