Rainy Day Activities

Well… where we live, it’s either SUPER HOT and miserable outside… or SUPER COLD and miserable outside. haha!  It’s not often that we have a happy medium.  Even on mild days, the WIND and dust make for interesting outdoor time. 🙂  Because of all of that, we really do spend a good amount of time inside!  Keep in mind that my suggestions might not work for your family due to age differences.  My kids are 5, 3, and 1.

Kitchen Time!

One of the easiest and most practical things to do with the kids is to cook or bake with them!  This serves several purposes.  For one, I can make meals as planned (although it takes a bit longer when I have ‘help’).  Also, we can incorporate homeschool lessons into it.  Math, science, no problem!  Additionally, if we decide to make something sweet like cookies, the kids get to learn how to do something nice for others (We usually give about 85% of that kind of thing to my husband to take to work.  How much actually makes it TO work is not my problem or concern. haha).

Let the Games Begin

Another thing we have had success with is playing games with the kids.  My kids like to play things like the  (affiliate link) Brown Bear Panda Bear Game,  (affiliate link) Candy Land,  (affiliate link) The Ladybug Game,  (affiliate link) High Ho Cherry-O, heck…they even like to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey (you can find cute seasonal variations of this by googling – pin the nose on the snowman is just one that comes to mind)!  😉

Recently, my kids have become increasingly interested in doing I Spy books or Look and Find activities.  I know that at Barnes & Noble they love looking through the various versions there and I’ve recently purchased several I Spy books through Scholastic Book Clubs.  They spend gobs of time going through and finding all of the hidden pictures and will work together to do it, too.

My children thoroughly enjoy creating forts or tents, too.  I give them free reign on the sheets, blankets, pillows, dining room chairs, etc sometimes and they LOVE it!  I was never wild about it as a kid, but I was usually just by myself, so it makes sense that it wouldn’t be fun doing it alone. 🙂

My daughter likes to play “store” as well.  We have several big calculators, she draws and cuts out her own dollars, we sometimes have loose change around… she gathers up shopping bags and receipts from recent store outtings.  I told her recently about my experiences as a kid playing store.  My favorite thing to do was to get my night light (the one that “senses” that it is dark and only glows when it’s dark) and pretend it was the “scanner” at my register.  Basically, as you “scan” your item in front of the night light, it lights up. 🙂  Anyway, she’s started doing that now, too.  She and her brother have a blast doing this.  The baby just gets in the way, so I allow the older kids to shut their door and play just the two of them.  By the way, when I say the baby gets in the way, I mean that he destroys and terrorizes everything.  He is the WORST about tearing up, chewing on, hitting, and otherwise demolishing items and people!  EEK!

Sometimes, if we get really bored, I’ll let the kids create little puppets.  My favorites have been the ones drawn on paper, cut out, and glued or taped onto popsicle sticks or toilet paper rolls.  There are tons of great sites out there that have printables, though.  DLTK is one such site and is AWESOME!!!  Once the puppets are made. sometimes we have little puppet shows.  DD will sit on the floor by the kitchen table and stick her little hands up so the table is the “stage” for her puppets.  I have recorded a few of her puppet shows on our digital camera so it can be watched over and over.  They usually turn into musicals.. haha  My family is quite musical. 😉

The kids also really love to dress up.  They also love to dress their baby brother up…I’m just around to take pictures. 🙂

Web Fun

My kids also love to play online.   Their favorite sites to play on are:
Starfall
Sheppard’s Software
Nick Jr
PBS Kids

More Rainy Day Activities

• Lacing Cards
• Alphabet or number magnets – give them a stack and a cookie sheet to stick ’em on
• Small dry erase boards or chalkboards and writing utensils
• Brainquest card decks
• Educational flashcards
• Fingerpainting
• paper bag puppets
• Popping bubble wrap
• Coloring/drawing pictures to send to penpals or grandparents
• Dance time” – turn on music and have them let loose
• Stencils
• Playing Wii sports or Just Dance
• Reading books
• jumping contests
• Simon says
• Red light, Green light
• Playdoh

What are your favorite tips for keeping the kids entertained?