Lessons from a Florida "snow" day

by Sara Marchessault

Just a few thoughts I picked up on my first day at home with the kids due to weather. Keep in mind that we live in Florida, so the little bit of freezing rain we had was a BIG deal to my little ones.  Icicles

1. Sugary breakfast might not have been my brightest move. My kids eats pancakes at least five days a week. They are homemade. They have chocolate chips in them. And yes, they eat them with syrup. (We have a two sugar a day rule and they know that this counts as one of their sugars.)

Anywho, on a normal day, we are out the door with tons of stuff to do and it barely matters that we had a sweet breakfast.

On a day when they kids can’t handle being outside for more than fifteen minutes at a time…wow! Running through the house in circles, jumping from toy to toy, and making various wild animal noises…it was intense!

2. Beef up your stand-by activities. One of our stand-bys is to race cars down the hallway. The kids normally love this.

On snow day, they raced cars for about three minutes and lost interest.

Thank goodness for the toy cupcake on the floor nearby. The new game became “try to knock over the cupcake with your car.” It lasted almost an hour!

3. Go outside while the bad weather is happening. We live in Florida. If we don’t take advantage, we’ll miss it. So, we were outside while the freezing rain was coming down.

We “skated” on the deck. We took pictures of all the ice we could find.

And we were back inside within fifteen-twenty minutes because my kids, even when bundled up, really don’t care for the cold.

4. Florida snow days are great for peeking interest in science. We talked a lot about frozen water, what happens when the temperature drops outside, and why it hardly ever snows in Florida. Any opportunity to talk to kids about science is one that I don’t want to miss!

5. Get out the journals and have family journaling time. Pencils, markers, maybe even glitter glue. Talking about writing and telling each other about what we’re writing in our journals.

This is my favorite time of the day.

6. Don’t be afraid to bust out the Karaoke machine. Ayla entertained us for at least thirty minutes with both her original pieces and her renditions of some classic favorites.

7. End the day with take out. Enough said.

Like this article? Please feel free to use it on your own blog or newsletter. I simply ask that you please include this blurb: Sara Marchessault is a coach, writer, teacher, and mom who helps busy women use journaling to create more space in their life for being productive without feeling overwhelmed. To learn more about Sara and her work in the world, please visit joyfulbydesign.com or saramarchessault.com.

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