Winter Trivia for Kids
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49 free Winter Trivia for Kids trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Winter trivia for kids is at its best when it answers the questions kids actually ask on a snow day: why snow is white, why ice floats, how many sides a snowflake has and whether bears really sleep all winter. These 49 questions start there and build up to polar animals, winter sports and the science of the shortest day of the year. The set covers snowflakes and ice, hibernation and animals that turn white, igloos and snowmen, the Winter Olympics, curling, hockey and the Zamboni, blizzards and frostbite, the northern lights and Groundhog Day. Every answer is checked against a cited source and each explanation adds one more fact worth repeating. Use it for a classroom quiz, a snow-day game or a warm-up before hot chocolate. Play a round now and see how many you can get right.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which months make up winter in the Northern Hemisphere?
December, January, February
December, January, February: those are the north's coldest months, while the seasons flip south of the equator, so Australians can spend Christmas at the beach.
Q 02What is special about the winter solstice?
It is the shortest day
It is the shortest day of the year: the Sun takes its lowest, shortest path across the sky, and from then on the days slowly start to lengthen again.
Q 03Under a microscope, the simplest snow crystals turn out to be which flat shape?
Hexagon
Hexagon: water molecules lock together in a six-sided pattern as they freeze, which is why almost every snow crystal that branches grows six arms.
Q 04Vermont farmer Wilson Bentley spent his winters from 1885 photographing thousands of what?
Snowflakes
Snowflakes: he fixed a bellows camera to a microscope and photographed each flake before it could melt, which earned him the nickname Snowflake Bentley.
Q 05Ice is clear, so why does snow look white?
It scatters all colours of light
It scatters all colours of light: sunlight bounces off countless tiny crystal faces, and the colours mixed together look white, though very deep snow can look blue.
Q 06At what temperature does fresh water freeze into ice?
0 degrees Celsius
0 degrees Celsius, or 32 Fahrenheit, is where fresh water turns to ice; the salt in seawater means the ocean has to get about two degrees colder before it freezes.
Q 07Why does ice float on a pond instead of sinking?
It is less dense than liquid water
It is less dense than liquid water: water swells by about 9 percent as it freezes, which is also why frozen pipes can burst.
Q 08Which hibernating animal gives birth in the middle of its long winter sleep?
Black bear
Black bear mothers give birth without leaving the den, and the cubs stay tucked in there with her until spring.
Q 09What happens to a snowshoe hare's brown summer fur when winter comes?
It turns white
It turns white, so the hare all but vanishes against the snow; the tips of its ears stay dark all year round.
Q 10What colour is a polar bear's skin under all that fur?
Black
Black skin lies under fur that is not really white at all: each hair is see-through and hollow, with no pigment in it.
Q 11Which is the only penguin species that breeds during the freezing Antarctic winter?
Emperor penguin
Emperor penguin fathers balance the single egg on their feet for more than two months of winter darkness, eating nothing at all until the mothers return from the sea.
Q 12Which small northern hunter trails polar bears in winter to feed on their leftovers?
Arctic fox
The Arctic fox normally hunts lemmings and other rodents, but when winter prey runs short it follows polar bears and eats the scraps from their kills.
Q 13An igloo stays warm inside because snow is full of what?
Trapped air pockets
Trapped air pockets make packed snow a good insulator, so body heat and a small oil lamp can keep the inside above freezing while the Arctic air outside is far colder.
Q 21The machine that smooths the ice at a skating rink is named after which inventor?
Frank Zamboni
Frank Zamboni owned a rink in California where cleaning the ice took a crew of workers more than an hour, so he spent years building a machine that let one driver do the job.
Q 22The famous Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska finishes in which town?
Nome
Nome is the finish, and there is a prize even for coming last: a lamp on the finish arch stays lit until the final musher arrives to collect the Red Lantern award.
Q 23What causes the northern lights?
Charged particles from the Sun hitting the atmosphere
Q 14Which young artist built a snow statue for a Medici ruler in 1494?
Michelangelo
Michelangelo, aged 18, made the snow statue for Piero de' Medici, and the commission brought the young sculptor back into the Medici household.
Q 15In the song, what brings Frosty the Snowman to life?
A magic silk hat
A magic silk hat does the trick. The song was written in 1950 as a follow-up to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the same singer, Gene Autry, recorded both.
Q 16In 2007 a record 8,962 people gathered on North Dakota's capitol grounds to make what at the same moment?
Snow angels
Snow angels: North Dakota was winning back its own record. A university crowd in another state had taken it the year before, so this time more than twice as many people turned out.
Q 17Where were the very first Winter Olympic Games held, in 1924?
Chamonix, France
Chamonix, France, staged what was billed as an International Winter Sports Week; only afterwards was it declared to have been the first Winter Olympic Games.
Q 18Which winter sport, grown from a 1960s invention called the Snurfer, joined the Olympics at Nagano in 1998?
Snowboarding
Snowboarding was long unwelcome at ski resorts: skiers spent years trying to keep boarders off their mountains before nearly every resort, and then the Olympics, let them in.
Q 19In the sport of curling, what do players slide across the ice towards the target?
Granite stones
Granite stones: the rock for Olympic stones comes from Ailsa Craig, a tiny island whose unusually dense granite can take decades of knocks on the ice.
Q 20What is a hockey puck made of?
Vulcanized rubber
Vulcanized rubber has long been the standard, but the first players on ice simply chased a ball until the flat puck replaced it.
Charged particles from the Sun hitting the atmosphere make its gases glow, oxygen mostly green; Earth's magnetic field funnels them toward the poles, so the far north gets the best show.
Q 24In US forecasts, a snowstorm with 35 mph winds and almost no visibility for three hours is officially called what?
A blizzard
A blizzard is defined by wind and visibility, not by how much snow falls: strong winds whipping up snow already on the ground can count, with no new flakes at all.
Q 25In a whiteout, what can a person caught outside no longer tell apart?
Ground and sky
Ground and sky blur into one blank white because the horizon vanishes, leaving nothing to steer by, which is why forecasters tell drivers to stay put.
Q 26On Groundhog Day, what does it supposedly mean if the groundhog sees its shadow?
Six more weeks of winter
Six more weeks of winter is the legend, but when US government weather scientists checked the groundhog's forecasts against real temperatures, he was right well under half the time.
Q 27Which parts of the body does frostbite usually attack first?
Fingers, toes, nose and ears
Fingers, toes, nose and ears are hit first, and the old trick of rubbing them warm is wrong: doctors say rubbing frostbitten skin only damages it more.
Q 28The world's first ice hotel is rebuilt from snow and ice every winter in which country?
Sweden
Sweden's Icehotel at Jukkasjärvi is rebuilt each winter from ice blocks cut out of the Torne River, and every spring it melts and runs back into the same river.
Q 29The Yeti, also called the Abominable Snowman, is a legendary creature said to live in which mountains?
The Himalayas
The Himalayas are its home in Sherpa stories, and the legend spread after climbers reported strange footprints in the snow there; the word yeti itself comes from a Sherpa name.
Q 30Reindeer are unusual among deer because of what?
Females can grow antlers too
Females can grow antlers too, and they keep them all winter after the big males have shed theirs, so an antlered reindeer pulling a sleigh at Christmas is probably female.