Winter Process Art for Preschoolers – Sparkles and Snow

Engaging preschoolers in creative activities during the chilly months is a must. Incorporating winter process art for preschoolers into your winter preschool activities is one of the best ways to do that.

With swirling snowballs of paint and sparkly glitter lines that looks like icicles, this winter process art project allows children to explore textures and colors reminiscent of the season.

By focusing on the artistic process rather than the final product, children gain confidence and develop essential skills in an enjoyable setting.

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
This winter art project for preschoolers and toddlers is loaded with fine motor work.

When the cold weather keeps us inside, it’s the perfect time to get creative with winter-themed art projects.

From swirling snowy paint to adding glittery icicle details, this project is all about letting kids enjoy the process of creating art. The textures, colors, and sparkly elements bring the season to life in a hands-on, sensory-rich way.

Plus, it’s not about perfection—it’s about having fun, building confidence, and developing important skills along the way. That’s what makes winter process art something special. 

Why Winter Process Art for Preschoolers?

Winter process art is a fantastic tool for developing fine motor skills. These wintery paintings allow children to explore textures and create freely while strengthening the muscles needed for a mature pencil grasp.

That’s the magic of process art: kids are building skills without even realizing it!

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
Now here is an art activity for fine motor skills, and just perfect for winter time, too.

Winter Art for Preschoolers

There is so much I loved about creating these paintings with my preschoolers. Although, my toddlers also made these same paintings. That’s right, this is winter process art for toddlers, too!

Materials

The Set Up

Place a piece of cardstock on a tray for your preschooler. Squeeze a dollop of white paint and blue paint on a paper plate and offer your preschooler a wine cork (or craft cork).

Now, invite your preschooler to join you in making some snowballs on the paper.

How to Make Process Art Less Messy

Like any process art, these can get a bit messy, but it doesn’t have to be that way. These are winter paintings with snow. As in fake, sparkling snow, and with the use of paint, well, you know where this could go.

  • Prepare yourself mentally for the mess. There’s going to be some, and that’s ok because messes can be cleaned up.
  • Have your preschoolers work from a tray. These food trays because they are really inexpensive and they wash up easily.
  • Have your preschoolers wear art smocks.
  • Use paper plates for paint palettes and just toss them in the track when done!

How to Make These Sparkly Winter Art Pieces

Often, when introducing process art activities to my preschoolers, I show my students some options on how to use the materials.

Step 1: Paint the Snowballs

When I demonstrated this to my preschoolers, I just worked on my own artwork as I talked out loud about what I was doing.

“See? I have a lot of paint on my cork. That’s going to make a really white snowball when I stamp it. Do you think so?…But now I have some blue paint on my cork and the colors are mixed…Ooh! I like how they swirl together! You can choose to use white, or blue, or both. And you can choose to mix the colors or leave them.”

My purpose in demonstrating was not to tell my preschoolers how to make the snowballs but to show them how to use the materials and what different things could happen.

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
Students use wine or craft corks to stamp snowballs on their paper. Alternatively, you could also use a cotton ball for a similar effect.

And like always, even though all the preschoolers were using the exact same technique, their wintery art paintings all turned out so differently. And this was just the first step!

I liked using the corks to make the snowballs because since they are small, they force the use of a modified pincer grasp, which is a step in developing a mature pencil grasp. If you work in a center where a cork would be a choking hazard for toddlers, you can try using empty water bottles to make the same snowball effect.

Some of my preschoolers were very deliberate in how to stamped their snowballs. They didn’t want them to overlap.

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
Some of the students experimented with creating snowballs of different and mixed colors.

They were fascinated by the swirling colors. When the colors get mixed and then the corks get twisted as they are lifted from the paper, they create the most beautiful swirling effect, which is very winter-like, don’t you think?

They remind me of the swirls made on the sidewalk when we have snow flurries.

Some of my toddlers were less deliberate about the placement of their snowballs and overlapped them or created a big snowy blob. My own toddler loved the muffled pounding sound the cork made as he stamped. Pretty soon, all the toddlers were pounding in unison, it seemed.

It was winter process art turned winter musical art! Gott’a love the multiple sensory art!

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
Some preschoolers just stamped away, creating what looks more like a snow hill.

Step 2: Allow to Dry Overnight

We allowed out snowballs artwork to dry overnight and then returned to them the next preschool day.

Already the preschoolers loved their art. The white and blue paint had swirled some creating a pretty marbling effect in the snowballs. 

But I wanted to encourage them to take it one step further. Sometimes even process art can happen in multiple steps, and the waiting and thinking and then coming back to the art is good for preschoolers.

Step 3: Add Liquid Glue and Sparkle

We added a bunch of liquid school glue (working that hand and finger strength in those small muscles) and then sprinkled our paintings with sparkling snow. The kind used in those pretty miniature winter train village sets. It sparkles like glitter and is chunky like real snow.

I did challenge some of my older preschoolers to squeeze the glue around the snowballs. This worked their hand eye coordination and control, but not all my preschoolers chose that approach, which is ok, too.

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
This preschoolers worked hard to drip the liquid glue around the snowballs.

Look at the concentration the above student has as he squeezes the glue bottle and tries to navigate the threads of glue in and around the snowballs. He just turned three two months ago.

The preschoolers worked that pincer grasp again when they sprinkled the snow onto their paintings. We ended up running out of sparkly snow in my older class so we had to substitute it with course, iridescent glitter, but the effect was not quite the same. 

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
Students use their fingers to pinch the faux snow and sprinkle it onto their winter art.
A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter
The faux snow looks like real snow crystals.

Now, what about all this purple, you ask? Well, that was a surprising effect we were not expecting at all! The school glue reacted with the dye in the dark blue cardstock, turning it purple, which I thought added a beautiful effect to our winter process art paintings. And talk about process here!

The turquoise and black cardstock did not have the same effect. And you won’t get this effect using construction paper, either.

The results were stunning! At least, I think so. But don’t you see why I love winter process art? Each preschooler and toddler ended up with their own beautiful wintery scene. And so many opportunities for learning preschool skills!

A Fun winter process art for preschoolers. This activity will help strengthen fine motor skills, creativity and show how each child is different. #winterprocessart #preschoolart #toddleractivities #winter

Winter Art Projects for Preschoolers

If you have an obsession with winter process art, I have even more ideas for you!

Snow Art for Preschoolers

Teaching a snow theme and you don’t want to deviate? Try these snow art activities with your preschoolers and toddlers.

FAQ About Teaching Process Art in Preschool

Why is process art important for toddlers and preschoolers?

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) touts Process Art as highly developmentally appropriate for the preschool classroom. Some benefit of process art includes:

> nurturing social and emotional health
> reinforcing skills like focus, relaxation, and emotional sharing
> inspiring creativity and problem solving
> builds cognitive skills like comparison, planning, and problem solving
> encourages vocabulary development and verbal expression of language

What is an example of process art?

True process art is simply allowing children a range of materials to use and allowing them to create at their own cares and whims. Ideas for inspiration can be posted, however process art is not about the outcome, but rather the intent of the creator.

Here are some fun process art ideas to get you started:
> paint and an atypical “paintbrush” like a comb or using string
> oil and water paintings
> magazine collages
> glue resist paintings
> cellophane collages on sticky tagboard

Check out all my process art ideas for toddlers and preschoolers here.

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