40+ FUN RAINY DAY ACTIVITIES

With the recent weather in the UK having resembled that of the arctic or monsoon season, I thought that some indoor play suggestions for your children might be well received. So, here's our list of ideas to keep you and your little ones from climbing up the walls if you are staying in. I hope that it comes in use!

A very belated Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a very enjoyable and restful Christmas break and getting through the grind of January. This blog has come out a bit later than I had anticipated, but with Little Bee's 2nd birthday, his party, some illness, and then with Little Bee starting nursery it's been a little hectic, as I'm sure you can understand. I also underestimated how long it would take me to write a list of 40+ suggestions! But without further ado here is our list of things to do with a toddler/pre-schooler at home when it's raining or seriously cold outside.

• Magnetic-tiles - We are big fans in our house and if you are too then you'll know that the opportunities are endless with them. You could make shapes with masking tape on the floor and fill them (as shown in '30+ FUN CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES TO ENTERTAIN THE KIDS' blog), make a maze for a 'Hexbug' (if you have one at home), build houses, make an obstacle course and blow a ball around it with a straw, develop a board game with them, create different coloured boxes for a colour sort, garages for cars, create silly faces with them, to name a few.

• Make a magazine collage - If you have any read magazines or newspapers around the house then you could recycle them, and cut them up to create a new image. You will need some scissors, paper and glue.

• Build a den - Another firm wet weather favourite in our household. We either use a pop up tent that we have, or some chairs and old sheets designated specifically for den building, and the children stuff it full of blankets, cushions and teddies. The last time we made a den we used some glow sticks too (did you know that you can store your glow sticks in the freezer to prolong their life?).

• Make jewellery - You'll need some beads and you could use with a pipe cleaner to twist into a bracelet for example, some jewellery laces or some elastic. A great activity for encouraging those fine motor skills. Don't have any beads? Why not use penne or macaroni pasta and some string or wool.

Big Bee in the thick of using her beads from Father Christmas to make a bracelet

• Have a disco - Put on some tunes, a disco/sensory light if you have one, maybe some fancy dress clothes and glow sticks if you have them to hand, and throw some shapes. You could play musical bumps, statues or chairs too.

• Movement cube - If you want to burn some energy then this is a fun and different option. Print off our movement cube here from the Resource Library, preferably onto card, cut, and stick together to make a cube. Then take it in turns to roll the cube and act out the different animals.

• Play balloon tennis - If you have x2 paper plates, tape, x2 lollipop sticks and a balloon then you will be able to play a game of balloon tennis. You could also see how long you can keep the ballon bouncing without it hitting the floor, or bounce it whilst the music is playing and then try and balance it on the plate when the music stops.

• Play-Doh cakes - You'll need some Play-Doh, candles, gems, glitter, sprinkles, small bits of pipe cleaner bent into different shapes and any other small bits that can be added to their cakes. You could even use their play kitchen or a recycled cardboard box to act as their oven. Sure to be a hit!

Anyone fancy a Play-Doh cake slice...?

• Rice/bean play - You don't have to have an all singing, all dancing rice play set-up to enjoy some sensory pay. Just get some dried rice or dried beans and a container that is large enough for scooping and pouring into. Then get some little pot and scoops or spoons and let your little ones enjoy. You could always add some little toys, like mini diggers or excavators to add to the fun.

• Vegetable and fruit printing - If you have some fruit or vegetables in the fridge that are on the turn then why not use them for printing. You will need some paper, paint and foods like apples, pear, celery base, onions or broccoli.

• Texture rubbings - Go on the hunt around the house for items that you could use, such as coins, a grater and comb. Then using wax crayons make a rubbings onto paper.

• Shadow play - You could either use your hands to make different animal shapes and a torch or use different animal figurines you have at home. To begin, you could encourage your little ones to guess the animal and then make the sounds that they make, discuss some facts about each one and then create a storyline including a few of the animals. Alternatively, you could make some shadow puppets using card or cardboard from a cereal box, lollysticks/skewers, Sellotape and scissors.

When Nelly the elephant met Gerry the giraffe during our shadow play

• Marble maze - On a baking tray use some playdoh to make a maze and then run a marble through the maze. You can then re-mould the playdoh and make a different maze.

• Do a scavenger hunt in the house - For younger children you could write a list of items for them to collect or draw a little map of where they can find their treasures. Alternatively, you could do an alphabet hunt with some foam letters that they have to find to make up a word on a flashcard/written on paper. For older children you could write clues for the items they need to find that have been hidden. For multiple children you could time them and turn it into a race.

• Baking - Whilst on the theme of baking, why not actually bake a real cake, cookies or muffins with staples that you have in the cupboard? Check out the recipe we used for some vegan cookies at Christmas in our blog post '30+ FUN CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES TO ENTERTAIN THE KIDS'.

Big Bee in the process of making some chocolate banana bread during a baking session

• Vet play - A fun activity to encourage role play and the important values of caring for others including animals. You could use animal figurines or cuddly toys and if you don't have any medical toys then you could either use your house thermometer and a Calpol syringe for example, or make some out of recycled cardboard and use loo roll as bandages.

• Make an obstacle course - I mentioned our carnival set in 'THE 3RD BIRTHDAY GIFT GUIDE THAT YOU NEED TO READ' blog post, which we use for setting up mini obstacle courses and a pop up tunnel. If you don't have anything like this in your home then why not use cushions, chairs and sheet for a tunnel, empty bottles, pool noodles and rings to make a DIY one.

• Children's yoga - A great way to get your little ones moving and doing something a bit different, and not to mention the plethora of other benefits from helping to manage anxiety to developing their flexibility. Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube is accessible and fun for children.

• Jump in muddy puddles - No rain day play would be complete without playing outside in the actual rain. As long as there is no thunder, storm or lightening, and you have the right rain gear for both your children and yourself then splashing in and out of puddles will no doubt be enjoyed. You can't beat fresh air!

• Visit the library - One for outside the house, but this list wouldn't feel right without it. Allow your children to explore their local library and immerse themselves in the wonder of books. Getting children interested in reading at a young age is important to encourage positive reading habits later on in life. You could also check to see if there are any story times or activities being hosted at the library that you could attend.

Making ourselves VERY at home at our local library

• Portrait paintings - Using mirrors you could get your child to paint themselves, or if you have more than one child you could suggest that they paint one another. Alternatively, if you don't have any paint you could make some portraits out of loose parts like bottle lids, stones and beads.

• Teddy bear tea party - Collect all the teddies who want to attend a tea party and then serve them a cup of tea and slice of cake. If you don't have any tea cups and play cake, then you could use recycled bottles and some cardboard to make some delicious treats.

• Salt painting - Draw a pattern or image on some card stock using PVA glue and then pour some salt over it. Then tip off the excess salt. Using some liquid watercolour paints dip your paintbrush and then dab it onto the salt and watch it spread. If you don't have any watercolours then you can use some food colouring and water. Then leave it to dry for a day or two.

• Painting with household items - Bored of using a paintbrush? Then why not try something a little different and find some household items to paint, for example, a comb, old toothbrush, sponge, bristle brush.

• Make a fairy house - Do you have a small cardboard box that could be converted into a fairy house? If so, decorate with tissue paper, card, stickers, paint. We also used some recycled faux flowers for the top of the house. Cut a door out and if you have more cardboard going spare then you could use it to make little beds for the fairies. We then added some items like battery operated tea lights, conkers, gems and real flowers and the fairies of course. The Bees then enjoyed playing with their creation and immersed themselves in a magical world.

Introducing our magical fairy land and house

• Read books together - Cosy up underneath a blanket on the sofa and read your favourite books together. If you have been to the library to collect some new books then this would be a perfect time to read them at home together.

• Fancy dress - Not that your little ones need an excuse to dress up, but a grey and rainy day is a perfect reason to open up the fancy dress box. Don't have any fancy dress items? You could play dress up with some of your clothes, or make hats from newspaper.

• Puppet show - If you don't have any puppets at home then it's a perfect excuse to make some with lolly sticks and felt, old socks, wooden spoons etc. In a past blog post we made some space and under the sea puppets - WOODEN LOLLIPOP STICK PUPPET CRAFT.

• Play a board game - If you have any board games in the cupboard then it's the perfect time to get them out and play with together. You could also get your favourite teddy bears involved. Memory games are the top of our list in our household, particularly our latest purchase 'Shopping List' by Orchard Toys.

Big Bee teaching Teddy the rules for the 'Shopping List' game

• Make a rain cloud mobile - Using half of a paper plate create holes at the top (curved side) to thread some string through to hang it up at the end. Then spread some glue over it and stick on some cotton wool balls. Then on the back of the plate add some different lengths of blue thread across the length of the flat side, ~ 5-6 of them. Cut out some raindrops from some blue card (a mixture of light and dark would be ideal) and then stick them along the length of the pieces of thread. Add the string at the top to hang.

• Complete a puzzle - This would be a firm favourite for Little Bee at the moment as he is obsessed with completing them! If you don't have any puzzles then why not make one? You could also add a challenge to get your child moving and hide the puzzle pieces for a game of 'hide, seek and complete'.

• Learn about where rain comes from - For slightly older children - why not learn about where rain is from and then do a rain experiment. It could be as simple as seeing what volume of rain you collect; to collecting rain water to watering some seedlings, and then comparing how well they grow compared to those grown using tap water (remember to make it a fair test e.g same type of seeds, same amount of sunlight to same volume of soil etc.); or illustrating rainfall through a demonstration using a jar filled with water and then putting shaving foam on the top to illustrate the cloud, and then using liquid food colouring and pipetting it on top of the foam and seeing it fall through into the water.

• Make houses for animals - Using recycling, Magnetic Tiles, Lego or Mega Bloks you could make little houses for any toy animals that you have around the house. This will then open up other opportunities for role play.

Little Bee in the building stage of these animal's houses

• Ooblek (cornflour goop) messy play - An entertaining activity that the adults can enjoy just as much! It's affordable and easy to make too and it's likely that you will have the main component in your store cupboard. For a small quality for x1 child, use approximately 75g of cornflour and 50ml of cold water and mix together. If the mixture seems too dry then add a few drops more of water. You could also add a few drops of food colouring if you would like to make the mixture a certain colour. Prepare to get messy playing with it and enjoy something that is both a solid and a liquid!

• Bowling - Have any empty cartons or plastic bottles then why not use them as bowling pins? You could then use either a ball or an orange/satsuma as the ball.

• Do a science experiment - There are so many fun science experiments you can do at home with your children using common household products, from the milk, food colouring and dish soap experiment; the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar experiment; to demonstrating diffusion with skittles and water. Do a little research beforehand into what is needed and what science is going on in order to answer any questions they may have, and to help with your explanation. I do plan on doing a blog post on some different experiment you can enjoy at home with your pre-schooler. But most importantly encourage your children to tell you what they notice and nurture the excitement of doing experiments at home, in the hope that this will carry on through the years.

The fun and easy skittle experiment

• Felt shape pictures - Using different coloured felt sheets and scissors cut out different geometric shapes, and make different pictures with them. You could either place them on another piece of felt sheet for a background and take photos of the different scenes you create, or for something more permanent you could glue them down onto some card.

• Simon Says - An easy and fun game that children love (and will no doubt bring back some nostalgia to your childhood). You can give commands such as "Simon says, hop, crawl, jump, dance, fly like a butterfly" etc. and watch out for when Simon doesn't say a command!

• Play hide and seek - A classic game that should never be underestimated! Need I say anymore?

• Bean bag toss game - Use a recycled delivery box, and either draw straight onto it the image you want or onto paper that you have stuck onto it, and then cut a hole (adults should do this step!) for the bean bags to go through. If you don't want to do the first activity step of creating an image then you could just skip it and make the hole. If you have a big enough box then you could add multiple holes for a different value of points. If you don't have a box then use a laundry basket. If you don't have any bean bags then you could make your own with rice, some scrap fabric and needle and thread, or use scrunched up newspaper or recycled paper.

For Little Bee's Thomas the Tank Engine themed birthday I made a bean bag toss from a recycled Amazon box

• Junk modelling - Have some rolls, boxes, jars, lids, bottles, cardboard boxes laying around then why not use them for junk modelling and made some different objects out of them e.g. a train.

• Sticky picture - Cut out a rectangle (or your preferred shape) out of some coloured card so that you are left with a border onto some recycled cardboard e.g. a flower, and then clover it with clear contact paper (the stuff you use to cover your text books with) and then add some loose craft bits such as, button, coloured lolly sticks, tissue paper, sequins, wool, felt etc. to make a picture.
  

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