Regardless of whether the local climate has snow in the winter, kids still associate the season with cold weather and bare trees. Preschoolers can make their own winter trees using materials collected outside and some basic craft supplies. Take a nature walk to gather pieces of bark to use for the trunk of the tree. Each child can glue bark to paper to make a tree shape. Stretch cotton balls and glue some on the tops of the branches as snow.
Help preschoolers make indoor snowmen out of socks filled with rice. Use an adult-sized white sock for each snowman. Pour rice into the sock with a funnel and use a rubber band to separate each of the three sections of the body. Preschoolers can decorate their snowmen with buttons, markers, chenille stems and scarves made out of fabric scraps.
After a fresh snowfall, have preschoolers help mix up some snow ice cream to eat as a snack. Mix together 2 cups of milk, 1 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp. of vanilla extract in a bowl. Add 10 loosely packed cups of fresh snow from outside, mix and eat immediately. When gathering snow for the ice cream, scoop away the top inch of snow to ensure that the snow you collect is clean.
Let preschoolers exercise their hand-eye coordination as they thread clear beads onto chenille stems to make snowflake shapes. Make the base of each snowflake by wrapping a chenille stem around the center of a handful of about a dozen white or silver chenille stems. Bend the stems in different directions to make a 3-D base for the snowflake. Preschoolers can thread clear beads onto the snowflake arms in whatever patterns they would like. Bend the end of each arm of the snowflake to keep the beads on.