7 Of The Best Rainy Day Activity Ideas for Kids
Treasure hunt
My daughter loves a challenge and I’m eager to get her up and about and using her brain! When she was younger and couldn’t read I used to draw pictures of the next clue. So for example if we started at the cooker, on the cooker would be a drawing of the next place she would find the next clue, so for example I would draw the washing machine! On the washing machine would be a drawing of the TV etc until she reached the treasure. Now we do a mixture of clues, some written in riddles and some drawn pictures.
What’s even more fun is that after, she’ll usually spend about 15 minutes developing her own treasure hunt for us to do!
Baking
Shredded wheat nest cakes! Delicious! Easy and doesn’t take that long so it keeps little minds entertained. Of course the best bit is debatable – licking the bowl or eating the final product.
See my post on how to make them.


Den building
So with this one you just have to accept that the room in which you choose to do den building will become a pig sty, but hey it’s fun. Chairs / stools/ coffee tables/ clothes maidens all make great props for blankets to throw over. Fill with cushions and a picnic blanket and allow them to have a little picnic lunch in there. Get them to invite their teddy friends and get them to pack a bag whilst you make the picnic. Just be warned, you may get them asking to have a ‘sleepover’ in it!
Story writing
Ok, so this one requires some ability from mark making to actual writing. So this one probably works better with school age children but don’t exclude preschoolers as whatever they ‘write’ is their story, legible or not. Pops will sit for about 15 – 20 minutes writing a little story straight from her imagination. It’s great to see her developing her mind. If you have more than one child why not get them to swap stories. So one child starts the story, the next will write the next paragraph of the story and swap back over etc. See what convoluted story develops. Then get them to illustrate it.

Put on your wellies
It’s raining, so what. We won’t melt. Put on your rain coats and wellies and get jumping in puddles. It’s actually quite liberating. Just make sure you have towels at the ready for when you return home.
Go Indoor Climbing
Brilliant way to keep them entertained and it’s physical so bonus!

Invent a game
Kids are good at making up their own rules. Why not put these skills to good use and get them to invent a game for you all. Be creative, it could be a board game they draw, an activity game or a word game. If you have more than one child, explain to each one that they make up their own game and we stick to their rules and take it in turns to do each others games.
For some more ideas I asked the lovely people from the blogging world what they do when the weather lets us down:
I love the play doh recipe featured on Emma’s Blog. Check the recipe out on Emma’s blog here
For older curious kids, I really love this science experiment from Twinderelmo. ‘Can you make an egg bounce?’ and I’m not talking about those fake bouncy eggs, I mean actual eggs. The experiment takes a few days but you keep going back to it at intervals to try part of the experiment.
Kerry from All About a Mini Norris says ‘I love making a den for indoor play. I let the kids help me built it and then we fill it with cushions and blankets’
It seems baking is a favourite activity, Hayley from Devon Mama says ‘Can’t beat a bit of cake baking. Especially as you get to eat them after!!’
Who says you need to stay confined to the house! Natalie from MemeandHarri says ‘We tend to still try and get out but visit museums instead of parks!’.
Beth shared another variation on play doh, this one looks like soil so you can be creative with sticking in flowers and bugs. It can be found on Beth’s blog Bamm Boo
Laura from Five Little Doves says ‘Play doh. Desperate times call for desperate measures!!’
Sam from My Mini Monkeys says ‘No mess painting activities and rainbow spaghetti play! Ooh and playing with our light box. All activities that I’ve blogged about. Here’s the spaghetti play pics’

Laura from Dear Bear and Beany says ‘We have a teddy bears birthday party if I know it’s going to be a long day at home. We make birthday cupcakes and then a birthday lunch. We have an indoor picnic with all the teddy bears and eat the lunch and cakes that we’ve made. We wear party hats!!’
Emma from Ready Freddie Go says ‘I am on maternity leave but not very mobile so trying to keep my almost three year old is a nightmare! As he loves to garden, when it’s rubbish outside we have recently taken to repotting and separating the “babies” off our house plants. It’s like a green house here but he absolutely loves it and checks daily for the babies he knows are starting to sprout!’
Suzannah from Home Heart Harmony champions PJ days ‘After a busy term of running around, one of our favourite things to do on a day when the weather isn’t great is stay in bed as late as we want and then just leave our PJ’s on ALL day’
I love this idea from Louise at Pink Pear Bear, they love movie afternoons ‘Movie afternoons! We make popcorn together and they choose the film and we turn all the lights off in the lounge and shut the blinds and pretend we are at the cinema’
and finally
Catherine from Growing Family has a fab idea ‘Making homemade bird feeders is always a hit with my kids’. Check out her blog post on how to make it.
Absolutely love these idea !! treasure hunt never thought of doing that before but my toddlers would love it!! this is defo being saved 🙂 thank you for sharing!! #blogsrtavaganza
Hope you have fun with treasure hunt 🙂
Wow so many good ideas-I am pinning this one! #blogstravaganza Ps. rainbow spaghetti SO FUN
The rainbow spaghetti look fab doesn’t it x
Oh my goodness! So many fab ideas and blogs to check out! It seems funny reading about this whilst sat in glorious sunshine though! We love baking, painting, playing with a tray of ice cubes/water, den making and splashing in puddles! #Blogstravaganza
oooo, I think my little one would love playing with ice cubes x
I love that your little one makes a treasure hunt for you too, that’s so cute! These are fab ideas, especially the baking! Thanks so much for sharing with #Blogstravaganza, hope to see you again next week xx
She loves to do them for us, I love her little pictures x
Good suggestions – that indoor climbing looks brilliant fun! #Blogstravaganza
She really loved it and keeps asking to go again x
A treasure hunts sounds fab! I might even try this out tomorrow because I think my girls would love it. We have lots of fun splashing outside in our wellies – once you’re wet, you’re wet, so you might as well embrace it, right?! #blogcrush
Absolutely, we dry off easy enough 😉 hope the treasure hunt went well x
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the treasure hunt idea! My eldest just turned 3 and is just starting to learn about letters and how they make up words. She would LOVE drawn clues! I’m going to do this tonight for tomorrow! Thank you!
With the story writing, this is something she will absolutely love when she can write. We do something a little similar, for now, we make up stories and draw pictures and I write the nouns to accompany them and she loves it.
Great ideas! Thank you! #TriumphantTales
Hope the picture treasure hunt went well x
These are really good ideas and brings back lots of memories of me and my siblings childhood! Nothing better then a Den and being imaginative!
Thank you for joining us at #TriumphantTales. I hope to see you again next week!
Best thing is letting their imagination run wild x
Making a den is one of mine and the little man’s favourite thing to do!! It’s so much fun. These are some great ideas! Thanks so much for linking up to #TriumphantTales – hope to see you again on Tuesday!
Thanks Jaki, dens are great fun aren’t they x
Thank you for these great ideas. There will always be rainy (or snowy) days where it’s not possible to play outside. Here’s my kids’ favourite game. Grab all of the pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals you can find. Create a maze that winds throughout your house where your kids have to go over chairs and under tables in order to reach the end. Remind them that the ground is lava and not to be touched! Get creative by timing each other, using a blanket spread over two chairs as a bridge, stuffed animals that need to be rescued from the lava, and more!
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