Winter Animal and Hibernation Activities and Crafts for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Alongside our Winter and Snowmen themed Activities and Crafts one of the other popular toddler and preschool themes we have enjoyed is all about Winter Animals and Hibernation. From Winter Art Projects showing where the forest animals can be found to a name game with bear paws. We’ve had fun reading, creating, playing and learning with our Winter Animal Activities and Crafts for Toddlers and Preschoolers.

Winter Animal THEME For Toddlers and Preschoolers

We’ve decided not to include penguins or other polar animals in our Winter Animal theme here on Rainy Day Mum.

Although found in the snow they can be found in the snow and ice throughout the year so we think they deserve their own theme.

Winter Animal Small World Play

We love having a small world set up for some of our themes and our winter animal theme is one of them.

We have a DIY Hibernation Felted Mat that we set up on our play table and find some of the animals that live in the forest and hibernate or stay away from our toy animal collection to play with.

If you want to quickly set up a winter animal play scene then check out our Winter Wonderland Invitation to Play it’s quick and easy and your little ones will love playing in the pretend snow.

Hibernating Animal Arts and Crafts

Arts and crafts are one of our favourite activities to do with our toddlers and preschoolers and we try and include some with each of the themes that we do. Below are our favourite Winter Animal Arts and Crafts we recommend trying.

Where do you find the animals in the forest during the winter? We used our favourite book and created a snowy winter sky with shaving foam marbling and then added in our forest animal stickers to create a Winter Animal Art Project for Toddlers and Preschoolers.

Hedgehogs are one of the animals that hibernate in the UK and our little clay hedgehog craft is perfect to make with toddlers and preschoolers. They will love either pinching or cutting out the spikes on the hedgehogs.

Handprints make a great art project with your tots and this Handprint Hedgehog can be made with tracing the hand or with making handprints discover how here.

The forest is full of deer at this time of the year hiding amongst the trees and this Winter Deer Art Project for Kids can be made with a red nose for Rudolph or without for any wintertime art with your tots.

Got more than one child at home and love to do crafts but finding it tricky? Check out our top tips for crafting with 2 or more kids under 4! We did it and so can you!

Hibernating Animals Recipe to Make

Cooking with your toddlers and preschoolers is another great activity to do together. Although some recipes can be out of reach and difficult there are plenty that we have tried and tested here on Rainy Day Mum that work well in your home kitchens with your tots. We have a great Hibernating Animal Recipe below for you to try.

Using our easy bread recipe you can transform what would be a normal loaf into these ever so cute little hedgehog bread rolls ideal to make for lunch or snack time with your tots.

Winter Animal Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Learn whilst you play with these fun printables and hands-on activities that go with our Winter Animal Theme for Toddlers and Preschoolers.

Winter Animal Printable Activities

Use our Acorn and Squirrel Count and Clip Cards to help your toddlers and preschoolers with counting.

Work on Ordering and Sorting with our Acorn Ordering and Sorting ideal to do alongside the count and clip cards above.

Check out our printable Bear & Friends Montessori 3 part cards to match some of the animals that you will find in the forest in the winter with their names.

Play our Bear Paw Name Game with your tots to support them learning to read, write and spell their own names and others.

Winter & Hibernating Animal Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Carrying on with the bear theme and another ordering and sorting activity for your toddlers and preschoolers. Hunt out those bears from the soft toys and get playing with this Bear Sorting and Ordering Activity.

We made this acorn matching math game for preschoolers to help with number recognition way back. It was easy to do and a few years later I found my younger playing with some of them matching up the numbers and putting them in the correct order as well.

Winter Animal Books to Read

We’ve picked our favourite 3 books here but you can find more Winter Animal Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers in our complete list.

We have included affiliate links to some of the products and resources as an associate we may earn from qualifying purchases.

By far our favourite Winter Animal book is Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner. Read all about why it is our favourite here!

Inspired by a Ukraine Folk Tale – The Mitten by Jan Brett is in our reading basket all winter long. It’s a beautiful story that features the winter animals we have activities and crafts for above.

Another one that we read through the winter months is The Bear’s Winter House by John Yeoman and illustrated by Quentin Blake.

More Themed Toddler & Preschool Activities and Crafts

• Dinosaur Crafts and Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Ladybug Crafts and Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Space Activities and Crafts for Toddlers and Preschoolers