Make believe you’re making footprints in the snow without leaving your home with this fun preschool role playing game inspired by the book The Snowy Day.
Explain to your child this is a make believe game in which they get to trek through the ice and snow. The idea is for them to trace each foot, cut out several pairs, then ,correctly position the right and left feet to make a “path” through the “snow.” Remember to also make the footprints point in and point out, like Peter does in the book!
Ask your child review the image above and explain the activity to you. Follow their lead.
This is a great exercise to teach or review right and left, to talk about how footprints are made, how long they might last, to talk about small footprints Versus large footprints and how to gauge whose footprints they might belong to. You could add to this by looking up footprints made by animals and printing/cutting those too. Here are some free printable animal tracks flashcards.
Here are the four steps illustrated above:
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Trace (or have an adult trace) your right foot.
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Trace (or have an adult trace) your left foot.
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Cut out each foot, with help or supervision from an adult; to speed things up stack two or three sheets to cut out multiple footprints with one cut.
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Child puts footprints on floor to make a pretend path in the snow.
Here are some book-based talking points:
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What was your favorite part of the book? Why?
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Where do you think the story takes place? Why do you think this?
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What are some ways you are like Peter?
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Do you remember waking up to a snowy day? What was it like? What did you do?
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Have you ever held snow? What was it like?
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Why do you think the snowball in Peter’s pocket wasn’t there when he checked before bed?
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Can you name something else that melts?
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Can you think of a way Peter could have saved his snowball?
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Is there anything in this book that you’d like to talk about?
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Is there anything in this book that you didn’t understand?
