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.

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!

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

• heavy cardstock in blue or black
• contrasting blue paint
• white paint
• corks (like from wine)
• liquid school glue
• sparkling snow
• small paper plates (or other paint pallets)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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. 

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!

Winter Art Projects for Preschoolers

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

• Frame Worthy Winter Process Art for Toddlers
• Winter Art Project for Preschoolers
• Christmas Collages/Preschool Process Art

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.

• Sparkly Winter Process Art for Preschoolers
• Snowball Painting with Pom Poms
• Tape Resist Snowflake Painting
• Sparkling Ice Winter Activity for Toddlers
• Tissue Paper Snowprint Winter Activity

FAQ About Teaching Process Art in Preschool