If snow days arrive, try one of these new adventures

As the weather gets worse and the temperature colder, school may be canceled, leaving students at home without their usual seven-hour schedule. Here are a few ideas to combat boredom during days at home. 

Backyard photoshoot

Whether the snow is making interesting patterns on the trees or ice is spreading across your windows in different shapes, the landscape that you usually see can be suddenly beautiful in a new way. When taking a break from school it is nice to ground yourself with nature.

Blanket fort

Building a fort of pillows and blankets  is a fun and cozy alternative to staying in bed all day and a good way to stay warm. A way to hang blanket walls of your fort to make a bigger area is to attach a string to two walls and hang blankets over them. 

Crochet

Crocheting is a repetitive task that follows a nice rhythm once you learn how. If you don’t know how to crochet, days off are a great time to pick up a new skill. Depending on how cold or icy this winter may be, you could start a project to work on each time school is canceled. On the first cancellation, you could start a project and after a few snow days, end up with a scarf that not only helped to pass the time but can now keep you warm.

Make Snow Taffy

By pouring hot maple syrup onto a fresh patch of snow, the syrup congeals into a taffy when reacting with the snow. Roll up the taffy onto a popsicle stick and enjoy! This treat originated as “Tire sur la neige,” an Atikamekw tradition.

Decorate with paper snowflakes

Making paper snowflakes is very simple yet fun. All you need is a square piece of paper and a pair of scissors. Fold your paper in half diagonally and then fold across the altitude of the triangle.Fold edges towards the center, crossing them to make a small quadrilateral, cutting off the overhanging ends to make a small triangle.Then cut any shape or pattern into this smaller triangle. Unfold and you’ll have a snowflake to decorate with!