Why Winter Is the Best Season for Forest School: 7 Benefits for Children and Families
Winter is often misunderstood.
We brace against it, hurry through it, and wait for the green promises of spring. But when we slow down and step into a winter forest — truly step into it — we discover something else entirely: a world pared back to its essentials, where learning becomes clearer, deeper, and strangely more alive.
Forest school in winter is not simply “forest school, but colder.”
It is its own season of teaching — a time when children grow in ways that warm classrooms can never replicate, and families rediscover a quieter, steadier rhythm of being together.
Here are seven reasons winter may actually be the most powerful season for nature-based learning.
1. Winter Reveals Children’s Resilience — and Their Own Surprise at It
Something extraordinary happens when children realize they can do hard things.
In winter, that moment arrives again and again:
A child who thought they “hate the cold” learns that movement warms the body.
A child who feared falling learns that snow forgives.
A child who whispers, “I can’t,” later shouts, “Look what I did.”
Winter is the teacher of perseverance.
And when a child learns they can face winter, they learn they can face life.
2. Winter Quiet Is Not Empty — It’s Medicine
Summer is a symphony. Winter is a heartbeat.
The hush of the winter woods creates a sensory landscape where children can hear their own thoughts and emotions. The crunch of snow, the distant call of a chickadee, the whisper of wind across bare branches — these become invitations to slow down and notice.
For many children, especially those who feel overwhelmed by noise or crowds, winter provides the clarity and calm that lets their nervous systems exhale.
3. Snow Is a Storybook Waiting to Be Read
Tracks are children’s first wild language.
In snow, even the most elusive animals leave their stories behind — a deer’s quiet morning path, the hop-and-stop of a rabbit, the signature loop of a fox. Children learn that every track is evidence of life, movement, and mystery.
Suddenly the forest is no longer “empty.”
It is full of neighbours they have never met but can now recognize by their footprints.
4. Fire Becomes the Gathering Place of Community
There are few things more primal than standing around a fire in winter.
Fire becomes teacher, comfort, responsibility, and celebration. Children learn how to feed it, respect it, and work together around it. Parents find themselves softening into its glow, letting the week drop away while their children stir snow-tea or warm their hands.
Fire creates belonging.
Fire says: We are here, together, on purpose.
5. Winter Play Is Creativity Unbound
Give a child snow and they will build worlds.
Winter ignites imagination:
• shelters tucked under cedar branches
• tiny tunnels for winter mice
• snow-mandalas spiraling into art
• ice lanterns glowing softly at dusk
Winter proves that creativity doesn’t bloom only in colour — it blooms in contrast, in shape, in possibility.
6. Families Remember What It Feels Like to Be Outside Together
Winter has a way of pulling families inward — indoors, into routines, into survival mode. But in the forest, families rediscover something vital: togetherness without distraction.
Phones stay pocketed.
Voices soften.
Parents and children become teammates, explorers, learners side by side.
In these moments, winter becomes a season not to endure, but to cherish.
7. Winter Helps Children Thrive — Body, Mind, and Spirit
The research is clear: outdoor winter play strengthens immunity, improves mood, supports emotional regulation, enhances sleep, and encourages healthy risk-taking.
But beyond the science, there is something deeper at play.
Winter teaches courage.
Winter teaches listening.
Winter teaches gratitude — for warmth, for movement, for small joys like steam rising from a mug of cedar tea.
Winter teaches children that nature cares for them in every season, not only the easy ones.
And that may be one of the most important lessons of all.
Want to Try Winter Forest School? Join Our 6-Week Winter Woods Series
Beginning January 2026, Wildfire Environmental is offering Winter Woods: Family Forest Morning Series, a 6-week pilot program designed to help families ease into forest school through winter.
External Resources:
CNAC – Risk-Benefit Assessment for Outdoor Play Toolkit
https://www.outdoorplaycanada.ca/resources
Child & Nature Alliance of Canada – Forest School Principles
Government of Ontario – Outdoor Play Guidelines
