Wonderful winter woolies
Brrrr, it’s cold outside. Winter is announcing herself today with an enduring drizzle and a bracingly icy wind.
It’s time to layer on those snugly winter woolies, pull on some boots and head outdoors. It’s amazing to me how kids and adults can feel temperatures differently. My primary-aged children cheerfully trotted off to school in shorts while I stood waving with one hand while clutching my jacket tightly closed with the other. Their happy place is the snow, I often prefer the fireside!
To celebrate winter wooly season here’s an easy craft idea that’s colourful fun, and a starting point for introducing lots of new vocab about clothing, weather, temperature as well as shape, pattern and colour. It has all the old-world charm of paper dolls.
You’ll need:
a piece of paper or card, A4 size or bigger
this could be the panel from a cardboard box, or the inside of a cereal packet. Don’t be too fussy!some colourful paper to chop into shapes
old artwork is perfect for thisscissors
glue stick (or blutak if you’d like this to be a reusable activity)
a thick marker to draw bold outlines
any drawing or painting materials your child enjoys.
In the upper middle section of your paper draw a simple face, or let your children draw their own. Sometimes it’s helpful to draw a big circular outline shape to ensure they start with a nice big size.
In the bottom corners draw two simple hands. You could trace your child’s hand for this, though they will usually end up much bigger and chunkier that way.
These shapes are easy to cut, but invent your own if you wish!
From your collection of colourful paper and/or artwork you’ll then need to cut out the winter woolies. For reference see those shown in the top half of the page above. Keeping things simple works just fine:
half circles for beanies (make sure the baseline is just bigger then the widest part of the head)
small circles for pom poms
long rectangles for scarves
glove shapes (mittens are even easier… be sure to fold paper in half to cut 2 at once
Offer the face along with an array of pre-cut ‘winter woolies’. Encourage children to choose and arrange the items onto the face and hands as if they are dressing the person for a cold day. You might suggest glueing them in place with a gluestick, or just leaving them unfastened to rearrange and use again.
Variations
The woolies could be cut from plain paper, and children can add colour to them.
The woolies could simply be drawn or painted directly onto the face and hands, no cutting required.
This activity can be adapted to other seasons or themes such as sunhats, crowns or football beanies
You can extend the activity by adding extras such as yarn for hair, or cottonball snow. The possibilities are endless.
Get small fingers busy and warm. Celebrate the weather, and have fun with your little ones.
