Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Today, I'm going to be sharing with you some snow hacks
and ways to entertain your kids in the snow. We've had it all week where we live, which is
actually very rare. So it's been very exciting. I can't remember having this much snow for so long
since I was pregnant with Fraser over 10 years ago. So it's very exciting anyway,
but I've been amazed at how much the kids have been playing outdoors in the snow. And I've been
on Pinterest. I found some really cool activities, so I thought I would share them with you guys. So
I hope you really like this video, and don't worry if you live in a warm place, I am also going to
include one hack of how you can actually make snow at home. So stay tuned for that. But yeah,
if you like this video, give it a like, and with all that said, let's get into the snow hacks.
So the first snow activity is a volcano that you can then erupt. This was so much fun to do,
and very easy. Just make a mound of snow and then put a bottle of diet Coke in the middle,
and we learned it works better with room temperature or warm diet Coke. Then add
four to five Mentos to make it erupt, and watch the kids get so excited. They loved doing this.
And another way is to actually mix baking soda and vinegar and food coloring. That also works.
But this really did get the height and the kids loved it. And it's also kind of homeschooling.
Another easy idea is to make a snow sensory bin, or it could be a bowl or whatever you have,
but I've just filled up this bin with some clean snow. And then I'm adding in some toys. Bath toys
work really well, because they're waterproof, and also his beach shovels worked great for this,
as well. So just put that in there. And then while we were all playing outside,
he was digging up his toys and he really loved it. So it's just a nice idea to keep them outside
playing in the snow for a little bit longer. Next up, I wanted to show you how to make maple
taffy. This is a delicious winter treat, and it's so easy to do. You just need maple syrup and some
snow, or if you don't have snow, you can also do this on ice. And it makes me so nostalgic, because
we used to do this when I was growing up in Canada. So I'm sure all the Canadians know this,
and some Americans, as well, but I wanted to show it to everyone. So just get some maple syrup,
and I'm using a hundred percent pure. I'm going to pour that into a saucepan. I didn't actually
measure it, but I think it was about a cup, but it doesn't really matter how much you put in.
What matters more is the temperature that you get it to. If you have a meat thermometer or
a candy thermometer, you want to get it to 235 Fahrenheit or 115 Celsius.
Then take it off the heat once it's hit that temperature, and let the bubbles die down. And
if you don't have a thermometer, you can check if it's ready by putting a drop into cold water.
And if it sticks together like that, it is ready. Then, using some compacted snow that you've packed
down, I've put this in a baking tray, just pour the hot maple syrup over it in strips, and then
just leave it for a minute. And what this snow or ice is doing is just stopping it from cooking, and
it makes it this taffy texture. You don't want to actually leave it too long. You can give the kids
a popsicle stick and then they can start rolling it up quite soon after you've poured it onto the
snow. And it's so delicious. Obviously, it's pure maple syrup, but it becomes this taffy texture.
And it's really, really yummy. So you can do this outside, or you can do it inside, like I did.
All you need is some clean, packed down snow, and then once you've made it, you can just enjoy.
We also tried snow painting, and I found this activity on Pinterest, and it was very easy to
set up. So all you need is some squeezy bottles, or it could be some drinking bottles or even
spray bottles, really whatever you have, and you want to fill them up with cold water, and then you
want to add in a few drops of food coloring. I get some vibrant food coloring on Amazon,
and it's so great for using in food, but also for activities like this. So you just want to
put in a few drops. We started to make a yellow one and then regretted it. So then we tried to
make it orange, so we wouldn't make yellow snow, but we also made a blue one and a purple one
and a red one. So we just filled them all up, gave them a bit of a shake, and then we let the kids go
outside and paint with them, and they really liked it. It actually kept them going for quite a while.
And you could either take it outside like this, or you can also bring it indoors. So I actually
put some snowballs into a muffin tin, and Jackson also painted those. So yeah, it's just quite a
cool one. They can make shapes or they can make rainbows. And obviously it's just food coloring,
but obviously because the snow is white, it's very effective. So yeah, quite a fun one.
And bringing snow inside is another hack that you can do, and I was amazed at how long snow lasts
inside. We filled up a big bowl like this and brought it indoors to play with. So if
your child is very little or just hates the cold, or it's extremely freezing outside,
you can actually bring it inside for some fun. The boys were digging up little
[inaudible 00:05:16] toys and they were just fascinated by it. So this is another cool hack.
Something else that was really cute when it was snowing, was we changed Jackson's mud kitchen into
a snow kitchen. So all we did was bring out some utensils from our kitchen and then a few things
from his little toy cafe, like some pots and pans, a little kettle, and then some tea cups, as well.
And we just left them there for him to play with. And he really loved it. He was making little snow
cups of tea for everyone. This might be Jackson's personality, because he loves playing shops and
cafe. I swear, he's going to have a shop one day. He really seems to enjoy serving people food and
stuff. But yeah, he was there for ages. So it's quite a sweet idea to bring a few things outside.
I also wanted to show you how to make snow dough, if you live in a place that doesn't currently have
snow. This is such a simple activity. All you need is two cups of corn flour or corn starch,
half a cup of oil, it could be vegetable oil or baby oil, and then some glitter, if you have
it. Just combine all of that in a bowl together and that is it. You then have a very glittery,
crunchy dough, which is a little bit like snow. And I love to have corn flour in the house because
you can also make a very simple Play-Doh just by combining equal parts of corn flour and hair
conditioner. So that's something that I have done with the kids for years. And then you can
just play with the dough. Jackson likes to cut it up or use cookie cutters on it, but it's just
something different and a really cool texture. And depending on the oil, it can smell really good.
Something else that we played in the snow that is so simple that I almost feel silly telling
you about is to play noughts and crosses, or tic-tac-toe in the snow. So you just need to
find some fresh snow and then draw a little grid for the kids and then let them play
tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses. They used the beach shovel, as you can see,
but then you can also use sticks or acorns if you wanted to. And they really liked it.
And the last little snow activity or snow hack that I wanted to share with you is a target
practice. Again, this is such a simple idea, but it kept our kids busy for ages. They were throwing
snowballs at these icicles, but I was thinking you could actually draw out some circles or a target
or hang something up, because they were just chucking snowballs for so long
until they actually hit the icicles down. The whole family was getting involved.
So I also wanted to show you that. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this video.
Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in my next one. Bye, guys.