Winter Wonderland

This Winter Wonderland small world was inspired by a recent visit to a garden centre. They had built the most impressive winter scene with trains, hot air balloons, popping corn, Father Christmas…. My 2 year old immediately fell in love with it. As you can imagine we would have had to remortgage the house to recreate it at home. So, by being creative and a little thrifty I built something which my son could spend many hours playing with and reorganising as he saw fit.

Set Up

For this activity I used my tuff tray to contain the snow. I used desiccated coconut for the snow and then used various toys from our toy boxes. I included woodland creatures, characters from Thomas the Tank Engine, a Brio train, Brio Track, farm animals and pine cones from the garden. I added these to make the small world look Christmasy.

My two year old loved this activity. He spent all afternoon playing with it; moving the trains around the track, giving the animals some food, adding bits from his toy box which I hadn’t included. During and after this activity we had some wonderful conversations about this winter wonderland small world. He even told my husband all about it at bedtime. It really did make a big impression on my toddler.

Our afternoons are so short at the moment, so I added fairy lights around the edge of the tuff tray and then put out electric fairy lights. It definitely looked magical.

This winter wonderland small world was quick and easy to set up, it made a huge impression on my son and the language it inspired was so valuable. Since this activity I have created similar small worlds.