Winter Math Activities for Kids: Indoor and Outdoor Ideas to Keep Their Minds Engaged

Math Happiness Project
8 hours ago
6 min read

Winter has a way of stretching on. After what feels like ten million weeks of gray skies and indoor voices, we know lots of us parents are searching for something (anything) that’s not another hour of screen time or doesn’t involve elaborate set up and clean up. Here's the good news: winter is actually full of lots of opportunities for meaningful mathematical thinking, both inside the house and out in the cold.

You might notice our suggestions below aren't about drilling facts or sneaking in "educational content" while kids aren't looking. They're about concrete experiences that help children build deep mathematical understanding. We want kids to see and connect math in their everyday lives. Moving away from worksheets and into the real world helps them do just that.

We've organized our suggestions by age to help orient you, but please don't feel limited by the age brackets. They're a starting point, not a rule. There's a lot of natural flow between the age bands, and if your child is right on the border of two groups, it's worth exploring both.

Winter Math Activities for Younger Kids (Ages 2–5)

Go on a Shape Walk in the cold

Bundle up and head outside to look for shapes and get a little fresh air. Rooftops form triangles. Window panes are rectangles. Tire tracks leave parallel lines. Manholes are circles. Look together and notice. Start with "Oh, look at that! What does that shape remind you of?" rather than "What shape is that?" This helps to build children’s sense of shapes AND gets everyone refreshed from a little outside time.

Use a Stick to Write Numbers and Draw Shapes in the Snow

If there's fresh snow on the ground, hand your child a stick and let them write. Numbers, shapes, dots to show a certain number you give them — it all counts. There's something particularly satisfying about the physicality of writing in snow: the feeling, the cleanness of the line, the impermanence. For children who are just learning to form numerals, this low-stakes medium can feel a lot less fraught than pencil and paper.

Count Birds' Nests in the Bare Trees

This one requires a slow walk and a little patience, but bare winter trees are actually ideal for nest-spotting. Challenge your child to count how many nests they can find. Are there more in the big trees or the small ones? How high up are most of them? This thinking extends from counting to comparing, estimating, and noticing patterns. And you're outside, which everyone needs more of when the winter gets long.

Dot Flash (Ages 3–7)

On a freezing cold afternoon when going outside isn't an option, pull out Dot Flash. This game builds subitizing — the ability to recognize quantities instantly without counting one by one. It's one of the most important early math skills children develop, and it's one that often gets skipped.

Ten Frame Scavenger Hunt (Ages 3–7)

Another great option for younger children, Ten Frame Scavenger Hunt gets kids moving around the house while building their understanding of how numbers relate to ten. Understanding ten as an anchor — knowing that 7 is "three away from ten," for example — is a big deal in early math, and this game builds that understanding through concrete, hands-on play.

Winter Math Activities for Kids in the Middle(Ages 6–8)

Measure the Snow (and Then Measure Again)

If you get a snowfall, set out a ruler or a simple measuring tool in the yard before the shoveling starts. Check it every hour. How much has accumulated? If it snowed two inches in the first hour and one inch in the second hour, how much is that altogether? Is it still snowing at the same rate, or has it slowed down? Data collection and analysis are great places to build critical math thinking skills.

Build Something and Think About It Mathematically

Forts, snowmen, snow sculptures — these are all rich mathematical experiences for kids who are ready to think more carefully about structure and space. How many snowballs does it take to build the base of a fort? How do you make sure the walls are even? If you're building a snowman, which ball needs to be the biggest? The math here is spatial and relational, and it comes naturally when kids are building something they actually care about.

Play Dot Pattern Match Game (Ages 4–9)

The Dot Pattern Match Game is a wonderful indoor option that continues building number sense in older kids. Recognizing and matching dot patterns deepens children's understanding of number and quantity in ways that go well beyond "just counting." It's the kind of game that can be played at the kitchen table on a gray afternoon without anyone groaning.

Equal Groups Game Bundle (Ages 6–8)

One of the foundational concepts of multiplication is understanding equal groups — and the Equal Groups Game Bundle was designed specifically to help children build that understanding through play. This is the kind of mathematical experience that actually prepares kids for multiplication rather than just asking them to memorize. Great for second and third graders especially, or first graders who are ready for a stretch.

Keep a Winter Weather Journal

This is a longer-running project, but a worthwhile one: have your child keep a simple daily record of the temperature (or snow depth, or whether it's sunny or cloudy) throughout February or March. At the end of the month, look at it together. What patterns do you notice? Were there more cold days or warm days? Did the temperature go up or down over the course of the month? This is a great way to get kids thinking about data and statistics.

Winter Math Activities for Older Kids (Ages 9–11)

Track the Sunrise and Sunset → Then Look for the Pattern

Winter is actually a fascinating time to pay attention to daylight. Have your child look up the sunrise and sunset times for your city each day for a week or two (weather.gov or a simple search works fine). Record them. How many minutes of daylight are you gaining or losing each day? Is the rate consistent, or does it change? Kids this age are ready to notice that the change isn't uniform — it actually speeds up around the equinoxes and slows near the solstices. That's a real mathematical pattern, hiding in plain sight, and most adults have never noticed it either.

Estimate, Measure, and Calculate on a Winter Walk

Take the measuring curiosity outside and push it further for this age group. How do you figure out the circumference of a tree without cutting it down? (A piece of string and a ruler.) How many of your footsteps equal a mile? If you walk to the end of the block and back every day for a month, roughly how far have you walked? This kind of estimation and calculation — where the answer actually means something — is exactly the mathematical thinking kids need more practice with.

Math Games Worth Pulling Out This Winter

Winter is honestly a great excuse to build up a small collection of games that do real mathematical work without feeling like practice. For this age group, a few worth knowing: SET rewards visual pattern recognition and logical reasoning in a way few games do (and it's competitive enough that adults won't be sandbagging). The 24 Game — where you use four numbers and any operations to reach 24 — builds fluency and flexible thinking across all four operations. Cribbage is an underrated classic that involves adding combinations to 15, strategic decision-making, and keeping score across a full game. And Yahtzee, which looks simple on the surface, actually involves meaningful probability intuition and multiplication.

Keep a Winter Budget

This one works especially well for kids who get an allowance or have some spending money around the holidays. Challenge them to track everything they spend for a month — even small things — and create a simple record of where the money went. At the end of the month, sit down together and look at the totals. What percentage went to food? To entertainment? If they wanted to save up for something specific, how long would it take at their current rate? You're working with decimals, percentages, and proportional reasoning in a context where the numbers are genuinely theirs. That tends to make the math feel a lot more real.

A Note on What Makes These Activities Work

None of the winter math activities above are only for kids who love math. They're for all kids — because mathematical thinking is something all children are capable of, and our job as parents is to give them experiences that build their understanding over time. When children engage with math through the real world rather than a worksheet, it changes what they think math is — and what they think they're capable of.

The outdoor activities in particular are powerful because they connect math to the real, physical world. When a child counts birds' nests in real trees or measures actual snow with an actual ruler, they're building the kind of concrete understanding that makes abstract concepts make sense later on. The games we've listed reinforce and extend that work in a structured but playful way.

Winter is long. But it also has a lot going for it, mathematically speaking😉.

Keep Learning with Us!

We have lots more resources so that you can support your child in becoming excited, confident, capable doers of mathematics. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube to stay up to date! @MathHappinessProject. You can also Browse our full collection of printable math games and resources at the Math Happiness Project.