The Best Rainy Day Activity Ideas for Kids

(IMO)

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.