Winter STEM Activities: Sledding, Hills, and Learning Fun

Winter offers countless opportunities for kids to explore, create, and imagine. Even in places that don’t see snow, winter STEM fun can come to life with a little creativity and imagination. With just a few simple center additions, you can have a classroom filled with hands-on winter STEM activities that encourage problem-solving, critical thinking, and cooperative play, sparking their curiosity and creativity as they explore the wonders of winter. 

I live in the South, where snow days are rare, but that hasn’t stopped my students from wishing for wintry weather. Rather than waiting for a snowstorm that might never come, we bring the magic of snowy hills and sledding into our classroom! By focusing on hills, slopes, and winter sports, like sledding, for example, you’ll naturally introduce ramps, balance, and motion through engaging, hands-on experiences. 

---

Exploring Winter Hills in the Block Center 

First, let’s start with one of the most versatile areas in any classroom: the block center. With just a few additions, you can turn this space into a hub for hands-on STEM exploration. 

Make Winter Hills

Set up a hands-on experiment in your block area with vinyl gutters and let the kids design their own “hills.” 

• Use 6-foot sections of white vinyl gutters as slopes. Children can prop them up on tables or blocks to create ramps for toys to slide down. (I found 12-foot vinyl gutters at the home improvement store for $6 each and had them cut in half. If you don’t have gutters, use long pieces of cardboard as your slopes.)
• Encourage students to adjust the height of the slope to see which toys slide fastest or farthest. 
• Try adding different textures to the gutters, like felt, sandpaper, or a thin towel, and talk about how friction changes the results. After that, ask children about their discoveries.

• Ask open-ended questions:  
  • What happens when you make the slope steeper? 
  • Which toy gets to the bottom the fastest? Why? 
  • Can you predict which toy will reach the bottom first? Why? 

Add Ramps as Slopes

• Experiment with Balance: Add ramps or inclines to your block creations. Students can explore how slopes affect stability and see how their designs stand up to different challenges.
• I use large pieces of cardboard for my ramps and hills.  
• Once students have experimented with cardboard ramps, add masking tape to the center to encourage students to build stable ramps.

STEM Connection:

With these hands-on activities, children can learn about sliding and stopping through play, exploring basic ideas about how things move on different surfaces. 

Adding Winter STEM to the Art Center: STEAM 

From building hills to creating art, the next stop in your classroom is the art center, where creativity meets engineering. Encourage creativity and engineering skills while introducing STEM concepts like balance and motion with these winter art activities: 

• Build Sleds: Provide small boxes, pipe cleaners, or other craft items for students to build their own sleds. When the sled are finished, test them on ramps in the classroom.
• Design a Hill: Provide paper, craft supplies, and glue for children to design and decorate their own wintery hills.  Once their creations are complete, they can test their hills with small cars or toys. 
• Create a Hill Scene: Encourage students to create a winter hills collage using paper, paint, and craft materials. They can draw sledders, skiers, or snow-covered hills to bring the scene to life. Once the collages are dry, they can be added to your winter bulletin board.
• Winter Hill Sports STEM Craft: This simple paper STEM activity, available here, allows children to cut, fold, and build their own mini slopes for skiers, sledders, and snowboarders. With this craft, students can: 
  • Practice fine motor skills by cutting and folding. 
  • Learn about balance and 3D shapes as they assemble their slopes. 
  • Experiment with angles and folds to adjust how their skiers, snowboarders, or sledders slide down the hill. 

STEM Connection:

These activities help children explore how things move and balance while they create, blending art and basic engineering skills in a fun and engaging way. 

Turning the Sensory Bin into Wintery Slopes

Now, let’s add STEM to the Sensory Table 

• Turn your sensory table into a snowy scene by simply adding white pom poms or cottons balls and small animals or people.  
• Add a metal tray as a hill for the people and animals to use for sledding.  

STEM Connection:

While they play in the bins, children are learning about motion and balance.

Exploring Winter Sledding with Literature 

Books can also spark STEM conversations, making your library center the perfect place for winter-inspired learning. Add engaging books to your library to inspire conversations about hills, sledding, and winter fun. Here are some great options, along with how they connect to STEM concepts: 

Note: I do not get any commission from these links, they are just books that I enjoy.

• Mr. Putter & Tabby Hit the Slopes by Cynthia Rylant: This charming story about an elderly man and his cat learning to sled introduces themes of trial and error, which can spark discussions about problem-solving and persistence. 
• Biscuit’s Snow Day Race by Alyssa Satin Capucilli: Follow Biscuit as he explores winter fun, leading to conversations about motion, speed, and the effects of gravity. 
• Sledding by Elizabeth Winthrop: This engaging tale inspires children to think about sledding techniques and the role of physics concepts like momentum and incline. 
• Snow Much Fun! by Nancy Suscoe: A playful introduction to winter sports and teamwork, which can lead to explorations of collaboration and the forces behind motion. 
• Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman: A delightful counting book that explores balance and weight distribution, encouraging young readers to think about how weight affects movement. 

STEM Connection:

These books provide engaging ways to introduce STEM concepts like balance, motion, and force through storytelling. 

Adding Winter STEM to Circle Time

For a group activity, let’s move to circle time, where the whole class can engage in discussions and experiments. 

Introduce hills during circle time with a free lesson or story about sledding. For example, share the story of two children, Zara and Finn, who try sledding on a low hill and a steep hill to see which one is faster. Use this as a jumping-off point for discussions about slopes and motion. This story and printable figures of Zara and Finn are our free resource library.  

STEM Connections:

Circle time activities encourage group discussion and critical thinking about scientific principles like incline and speed. 

Music and Movement: Winter Songs with a STEM Twist 

Finally, bring movement into your lessons with music that gets kids thinking and acting out STEM principles. 

Music and movement are perfect for bringing STEM concepts to life by helping children experience principles like balance, rhythm, and motion firsthand. For example, songs about slopes or movement can reinforce physics concepts in a way that’s both engaging and memorable. Here are some songs to sing with your students as they experiment with slopes and movement: 

The Sledding Song

(to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell“)

• We’re sliding down the hill, 
• We’re sliding down the hill, 
• Oh, what fun it is to ride, 
• We’re sliding down the hill! 

• We climb back to the top, 
• We climb back to the top, 
• Our legs are tired, but we won’t stop, 
• We climb back to the top! 

• Let’s build a bigger hill, 
• Let’s build a bigger hill, 
• Add some snow, and watch us go, 
• Let’s build a bigger hill! 

• The sled flips in the snow, 
• The sled flips in the snow, 
• We tumble, laugh, and brush it off, 
• It’s time to go, go, go! 

Snowflake, Snowflake

(to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star“)

• Snowflake, snowflake, gently falling down, 
• Whirling, twirling, spinning ‘round. 
• Snowflake, snowflake, softly land on me, 
• Making winter fun, you’ll see! 

Pair this with white ribbons or snowflake puppets to mimic falling snow. 

STEM Connections:

Songs and movement help children feel and understand how things move and balance through fun, hands-on experiences. 

Final Thoughts 

You don’t have to completely overhaul your winter unit to add exciting STEM elements. With simple activities like exploring slopes in the block center, crafting sleds, and reading winter-themed books, you can introduce STEM concepts in a fun, accessible way. Whether it’s designing vinyl gutter slopes, singing sledding songs, or using the Winter Hill Sports STEM Craft, these ideas will inspire creativity and curiosity in your young learners.