Rainy Day Activities for Kids
When You Can't Go Out To Play
There are countless activities for you and your children to do when the weather prevents you from going outside. Whether it is too cold, too hot, or too wet.
The sky is the limit! Use your imagination and you will never run out of things to do. But, just in case you're stuck; here are some helpful ideas to get you started:
Build an Indoor Fort
Use blankets to make tents out of chairs, couch backs, bunk beds, or even tables. Try balancing blankets with mop or broom sticks as a challenge. There is just something about a blanket fort that kids find irresistible!
They will spend hours building it and playing in and around it. Once it's built they can read, color, do puzzles, or pretend they are camping. (and so much more)
Once my children and I built a fort out of newspaper! We opened the sheets up as large as they would go, rolled them up and stapled them together to make a dome shaped fort that was huge! We had a blast and it kept them occupied for nearly the entire day.
Get creative with your fort making skills, tools, and supplies. You don't have to stick to just blankets and chairs, or newspaper for that matter. See if you can come up with your own interesting fort structures!
Let's Hear It For The Band
Make musical instruments out of household items or recyclables!
You could stick with wooden spoons, pots, and pans ~ but why limit yourself?
Tape together an empty tissue box with an empty toilet paper roll or paper towel roll, add a couple of rubber bands and you've got yourself a little guitar!
Cover one end of an empty toilet paper roll with wax paper, secure with a rubber band, poke a whole in the middle of the roll ~ you've just created a kazoo.
Fill old plastic bottles with dried beans, rice, or dried peas ~ instant maracas!
Challenge your kids to try to come up with different instruments they could or would like to make and see if you can figure out how to make them! Hours of fun for everyone.
Cooking Projects:
Kids love to help out in the kitchen. Why not make a special cooking project just for them.
Help them measure out the ingredients, mix, stir, and bake if needed. It doesn't even have to be something edible! You could make homemade play dough or clay.
Different age groups will be able to handle different levels of cooking, but there are things that every kid can do and help with that will bring a smile to their face, even if it is just helping stir the pudding!
Table Time
There are many things kids can do just sitting at the table!
- Puzzles
- Coloring
- Work pages
- Sensory Bins
- Card Games
- Paper dolls
- Play Dough
One of the things that my family likes to do is to go around in a circle and take turns making up a story. Either an older child or parent writes what is being said, then once it is finished the kids all take a section of the story and draws a picture to help show what is happening in the story. We put it all together and we have an instant book! They love reading it over and over again because they helped write it and helped illustrate it!
Tea Time!
Girls and Boys love pretending! Having a tea party isn't just a "girl" thing. You don't even have to call it a tea party if you don't want to. Just call it a party!
Have the kids get dressed up in their fancy outfits, silly outfits, or whatever they want
You could have a milk & cookies party
A tea party with water instead of tea
A just pretend party where you are eating and drinking air!
The secret & magic of it is simply the word "party". It doesn't have to be elaborate to be fun. Children have great imaginations and will love it no matter how simple or complex you choose to make it.
Quiet Games
There are 2 games I used as a preschool teacher with my students and as a mother with my own children that every kid (in my experience) loves to play!
Silent Ball: You get a ball, any ball - have the kids sit across from one another or in a circle, depending on how many kids you have. The object of the game is to roll the ball back and forth without making a sound. If you make a noise you are "out". You have to sit on the side until a new game starts. You'll be amazed at how long kids will keep at this game & how quiet the house is while they are playing!
Sleeping Lions: The kids pick a place in the living room (or lion's den) to lay down. The object of the game is to act like a sleeping lion. If you make noise you are "out". The winner is the lion who is the quietest for the longest. Again, it is just amazing how hard the kids will try to stay quiet for as long as they can possibly muster.
Get Crafty:
Kids LOVE crafts! They love to work with their hands, get messy, and get involved in creating things. There are hundreds of craft ideas for kids online to choose from if you are having trouble coming up with something on your own. Here are a few simple ideas to get you started:
- Sock Puppets
- Popsicle stick picture frames
- door hangers
- cardboard Barbie or fairy furniture
- anything that involves glue, scissors, and/or painting
Even More Ideas:
Yes, there's more. Isn't it mind boggling how much you can do on a rainy day?
- make confetti by ripping up paper into tiny pieces
- play with stickers
- build with blocks
- use tape to make roads on the floor for toy cars
- play dress up with dolls
- play dress up with real people ~ put on a fashion show
- stringing beads
- make macaroni jewelry
- Play hide and seek
- Play I spy
- Dance
- Make a bean bag toss game
Hopefully you've noticed that through this entire article, not once was there a suggestion for T.V., movies, or video games. Get creative! But the most important thing to remember is that even if you can't go outside ~ you can still have tons of fun!
