Winter is arriving and our workshop has been planning something fun for class. Read about what’s new and check out our highlighted content for the season.

Let it glow: Our new paper circuit activity

We’ve created a fun hands-on activity where students build a circuit using copper tape to light up small LED lights. It’s a safe way to explore circuit-building and a great way to make your classroom cozy and bright. We’ve included three templates with cheerful winter designs, or students can let their creativity shine with their own designs.

Check out Let it Glow: Build a paper circuit to keep spirits bright before the winter break begins.

Paper Circuit Kit Giveaway

Update: All 200 kits of our giveaway have been claimed! Thank you for your interest in our new activity and apologies to anyone who wasn't able to claim one—we know they went very fast.

The kits included copper tape, LED lights, and coin cell batteries for classes to participate in our new paper circuits activity. These items can be purchased separately, and you can reach out to us if you need help locating materials.

For those who claimed a kit, we will be sending them via courier in the coming week.

Winter weather and safety

Every community faces its own winter, which can fluctuate each year. In recent years there have been more extreme weather patterns, including snaps of snow and arctic flow which bring intense cold even to places that don’t usually experience these dips in temperature.

Discuss the season with your students and make sure they understand the seriousness of these weather changes. Cold, snow, and ice can be very dangerous, so make sure they are staying safe and watching out for their peers. At the same time, you can also help them to embrace the changes that winter brings—for example, learning how to prepare for a power outage and what fun activities they can focus on during these times.

Whatever holidays your students celebrate, the start of winter is a time where most of us celebrate togetherness and bright lights in the dark. We recommend decorating your classroom with LEDs, comparing them to traditional incandescent lights, and discussing what your class will do if there’s an outage. It’s a great opportunity to have conversations about electricity, conservation, and other forms of energy such as thermal warmth.

Recommended activities

In addition to this year’s new activity, these activities are available again for a limited time:

Fun frosty winter (K-13)

Play a quiz game to solve a riddle and get ready for the colder winter season with tips for saving electricity and water.

Untangle holiday lights (Grades 4-7)

Solve winter-themed riddles to figure out the mystery word written on the lights.

We also have lots of other activities about changing weather and winter safety. This year we are highlighting our activities about staying warm and preparing for the changes that winter brings.

Winter warmth (K) 

Through a fun, interactive slide show, learn about how animals keep warm, how we have similar tactics and how to save our heat.

Winter storm safety (K, Grade 1)

Get prepared for power outages and stay safe during the winter season.

Temperature smart bingo (Grades 4-7)

Students will learn about saving energy with our water and space heating by investigating items that save energy and playing bingo to test their energy conservation knowledge.

Storm safety social media (Grades 8-12)

Prepare for winter storms and create storm safety messages to share on social media.

The warm truth (K) 

Use movement to find out the truth about keeping warm in the winter.

Staying warm: memory game (Grade 3)

Test your students' memory and knowledge on how to keep warm.

Recommended reads

These are great Power Up Blog posts to revisit for tips and inspiration as winter approaches:

• Power outages & weather: a few things you might not know
• Seven things to never do during a power outage
• Why BC Hydro loves snow as much as skiers do
• Winter safety kick-starter: Kids' questions answered