Just because the weather outside is gloomy doesn't mean a rainy day has to dampen the fun you can have with your kids. Wet weather days can definitely be a challenge when you typically love to venture outdoors, but when equipped with entertaining and engaging rainy day activities for kids, you can turn a day filled with raindrops into some of the most memorable moments!
Rainy Day Games & Activities for Energetic Kids
Some kids are happy to lie around watching movies, doing puzzles, and quietly coloring; other kids can never seem to stop moving, EVER. Parents of these kids dread rainy days, because they know that without the ability to get them outside, their home will quickly transform into a jungle gym, with kids bouncing off the walls quite literally. Thankfully, even when cooped up indoors, you can still create countless activities that will get your kids moving within the confines of your home.
Play The Floor Is Lava
The Floor is Lava is a fun and challenging game for kids to play when stuck indoors. See who can race from start to finish without ever touching their feet to the ground! The game has countless variations, making it a go-to activity for children of any age.
Create an Indoor Obstacle Course
Challenge your children to an indoor obstacle course. Make one in a hallway space using painter's tape, create a maze of lines to weave through on the kitchen floor, or combine the Floor is Lava with the obstacle course concept to make something truly unique and entertaining, and perfect for rainy days.
Play Charades
Charades is a classic game that will get everyone laughing and jumping around as they act out silly scenarios. Think of things your kids can act out without words as the rest of the family guesses what is being demonstrated. With younger children, you can whisper simple ideas for them to act out. Consider options like:
- Brushing teeth
- Being a Bunny
- Sleeping
- Eating
- Driving a car
Older kids can read slips of paper with ideas and be challenged to act out these more complicated concepts and scenarios. Some of these include:
- Baker
- Hairstylist
- Teacher
- Gorilla
- Opening presents
You can also play themed charades, choosing to act out different occupations, animals, sports, or concepts related to upcoming holidays.
Hold a Family Talent Show
When your kids complain that the rain will never cease and there is nothing to do, ask them to show you their best talents. Request that they think up a talent to go practice and then showcase it for the family in a family talent show. You can have everyone perform their own unique aptitudes and they can team up and do a joint talent if your family has enough willing participants.
Try Indoor Hopscotch
You might associate the classic playground game of hopscotch with the outdoors, but you can play it inside too! If you have a long hallway space and painter's tape, then you can bring the playground indoors during a rainy day. This game will not only entertain kids, it will also bring parents right back to their childhood days. What a great way to bond during a drizzly day!
Go on an Epic Scavenger Hunt
Set up a series of scavenger hunts around your home. Young kids can perform simple searches, looking for everyday objects, and older kids can turn to clues to help them solve puzzles and find the necessary objects on their list. With some creativity and thought, there is no end to the kinds of hunts you can design for your squirrelly band of kiddos.
Play Balloon Volleyball
If you have a big play space, clear everything out of the way, grab some painter's tape (to make your net), blow up some balloons, and host a few games of balloon volleyball! This is a great way to release some of your kids' energy, without the worry of items breaking. Add a handful of balloons for a bit of a challenge, especially if you have a lot of kids playing.
Engage in Balance Challenges
Test your kids' center of gravity and concentration with these seemingly simple challenges! Some exercises you can ask your kids to complete are:
- How long can you do a Bakasana yoga pose?
- Can you stand like a flamingo without falling?
- Who can do a wheelbarrow race across the room without tumbling down?
- How long can you hold an eagle yoga pose?
- Can you walk in a straight line backwards with your eyes closed?
- Let me see your best single leg deadlift!
There are so many silly poses and movements that kids can try to accomplish that will not only wear them out but also test their balance at the same time.
Have a Dance Party
Shake the sillies out with a good, old-fashioned dance party. Crank up the music, move the furniture out of the way, and perform some of your all-time favorite dance moves. Try a few dance party variations to keep kids interested, such as:
- Glow Party Dance - Put glow sticks around ankles and wrists and attach them to clothing, then turn the lights out and get your groove on.
- Freeze Dance - Dance until the music stops. When it shuts off, your body better do the same, or you are out!
- Follow the Dance Leader - One person leads the dance party, and the others have to try to perform the same dance moves the leader does.
- Dance in the Rain - If you're lucky enough to have a warm, rainy day that is free of lightning, put on those rain boots, head outside, and then dance in the rain and jump in the puddles!
Make Instruments and Create a Marching Band
Combine crafting and movement by making homemade instruments and marching to songs in a mock marching band. Use a pot and a wooden spoon to fashion a drum, make maracas with toilet paper tubes and rice, or try to create a cereal box guitar out of items you already have at home. After your kids make their instruments, they can march through the house, playing their favorite tunes.
Do Some Yoga
Not all inside movement activities have to be wild and crazy! Create an inner sanctuary right in your living room with a bit of yoga practice. Get kids involved with gentle stretching and some namaste during a rainy day.
Make a Home Bowling Alley
Using 20-ounce pop bottles and a ball to make a bowling alley in the hallway of your home. Fill the bottles with water, sand, or rice and set them up to emulate pins in a bowling lane. Take turns rolling the ball and knocking them down.
Build Domino Sequences
We have all seen the intricate domino runs that topple over with one little tap and bring a beautiful domino effect in movies and TV shows. The question is, have you ever tried to make one yourself? This can be a great project for both young and older kids that tests their patience, builds fine motor skills, and brings a spectacular show once completed!
Make an Escape Room
Did you know you can download all the supplies you need for your very own an escape room? Challenge your kids with an array of fun scenarios to solve and see if they can beat the clock! There are options for all ages and this can make for an exciting thing to do on a rainy day.
Go Swimming In Your Jacuzzi Tub
It seems like every master bathroom has a built in tub that many people never find the time to use. Why not put this bathroom feature to use? Fill up the tub with bubble bath, grab your best bath toys, have your kids put on their swimsuits, and splash around for a bit! Make bubble beards and crazy bubble hairdos, have an epic boat race, or simply relax in the warm water.
Rainy Day Crafts & Creative Activities for Kids
Get out the markers, the glue, and the glitter and start creating! Rainy days are perfect days to channel kids' inner-Picasso and foster the creative spirit.
Make Homemade Play Dough
Handing kids silly putty or play dough will keep them occupied for some time. However, allowing them the creative freedom to make their own play dough or putty will double the fun and keep them busy for twice as long. Provide kids with an easy recipe and common ingredients so they can make their own batch of dough and spend the afternoon making whatever comes to mind with it.
Make Some Festive Crafts
Whether the rain falls in the autumn, spring, or summer, there's sure to be a holiday creeping up right around the corner. Use the rainy day to make some holiday-inspired crafts. Make American flag crafts to gear up for the 4th of July, cute and spooky Halloween decor in the fall, or bright and sweet Easter crafts in the springtime.
Make Colorful Crayon Shapes
Don't dispose of all your broken crayons! Repurpose these old coloring tools and make them new again! You can sort them into colors or make rainbow coloring blocks. You'll need a muffin tray, your old crayons (with the paper removed), and an oven and a freezer.
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees, put your crayon selections in the muffin tin sections, and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Then, remove the tray from the oven, place it on a room temperature cookie sheet, and transfer them to the freezer. Once they've hardened, place them on the counter and allow them to reach room temperature. Then, kids are ready to color!
Create a Sensory Bin
Sensory play is a spectacular stress reliever and it can keep your kids entertained for hours! This makes for a wonderful rainy day idea for kids. Best of all, you likely have all the supplies you need in your home. Parents can use beans, rice, or sand as their filler, they can use kitchen tools for scooping, pouring, and funneling, and then they just need small toys and knickknacks for their kids to discover within the space.
Make Puppets and Put on a Show
Kids love performing for parents on rainy, dull days. Take their love of acting to new heights by helping them to make puppets and by creating a puppet show for the family. Sock puppets are commonly made crafts and are fairly easy for kids of all ages to craft. Paper bag puppets are also simply constructed out of items found lying around the home. You can fashion puppets from construction paper and household objects to put on a shadow puppet show as well.
Learn the Art of Origami
Origami is another craft that older kids can try their hand at on wet days. You'll need origami paper and a few easy tutorials to get started. Try making a throwing star or a tulip. While origami might not be suitable for little kids still honing in on those fine motor skills, with some help, they might be able to make a few beginner origami creations like a bird!
Make Some Slime
Satisfy your kiddo's desire to create with an afternoon spent making slime. They can make sparkly slime, foam slime, and simple slime in no time flat! Then, they can use the rest of the rainy day to play with it.
Build an Indoor Fort
Help the kids make an awesome fortress that they won't ever want to leave! Daily activities like reading, snacking, and watching movies are so much more fun when you do them in a homemade indoor fort.
Craft Jewelry
No matter if you have beautiful beads and intricate fabrics lying around or just a large collection of hollow dried pasta, making jewelry is always a fun pastime that your kids can then wear to school or in your family talent show!
Design "Thinking of You" Cards for Neighbors
Using cardstock and markers, set up a card-making station at the dining room table. You don't need a reason to give someone a card; kids can learn that giving out "Thinking of You" cards can make anyone's day a bit brighter. Let your kids pass the cards out to neighbors and friends once the rain lifts, making them the sunshine in someone else's day.
Fun & Educational Things for Kids to Do On a Rainy Day
You can have fun and teach your kids a thing or two with these perfect rainy day activities. Drizzly days are excellent opportunities to exercise those little brains of theirs!
Dive Into Science
Become brainy scientists when the rain starts to fall with a few of these well-thought-out science experiments for kids. There's something for kids of all ages when it comes to science. Try food-based experiments, making invisible ink, or expand soap in the microwave (under adult supervision, of course)!
Play Wonderful Word Games
Rev up those little minds with a few fun word games for kids both young and old. Have fun and build your younger child's literacy and vocabulary skills with classic games like Boggle or Scrabble, or challenge your older child to a round of Word in Words.
Allow Apps That Emphasize Learning
While parents should try to keep screen time limited, rainy days might allow for a bit of extended play. Choose to let your young ones spend some time on an educational app or play a word app game with children who are a little older. Excessive screen time isn't a great thing, but not all screen time usage is bad!
Learn Kitchen Basics With Baking
There's so much that kids can learn in the kitchen, and rainy days are the perfect time to practice those measuring and baking skills. Help kids learn their way around recipes by whipping up fun snacks like homemade cookie recipes or yummy, healthy muffin recipes.
Freeze Something Yummy
For the parents who don't mind a bit of a mess, but don't have time to stop what they are doing to supervise the use of an oven, consider letting your kids make fruit juice popsicles for when the sun starts shining again. Grab some chopped up fruit, juice, water, and fresh herbs and let them concoct some sweet treats!
Test Their Palate
Another fun food-based rainy day idea for kids is to see how discerning their palate is by conducting a blind taste test! Have everyone sit down, blindfold each participant, and put a paper plate in front of them. Then, grab a collection of flavors from the fridge and see if they can figure out what they are eating. Sour and tangy foods like pickles, sauerkraut, and lemons are always a funny addition to this game.
Tour the World
It might not be feasible to jet off to explore the world, but you and the kids can still experience the wonders of the world virtually. Take a virtual field trip to faraway lands as you expand young minds and open their curiosity up to places they never knew existed.
Build a Bridge
For the kids who hope to become engineers someday, this is a fantastic learning activity. Grab paper and glue, dried pasta and marshmallows, or your exorbitant collection of Lego blocks and have them build a bridge. The challenge lies in how much their structure can hold. Pick out a handful of items to place on top of their bridges once they're complete. Whoever's bridge stays standing the longest is the premier engineer!
Rainy Day Activities for the Whole Family
If your clan revels in time spent together indoors, enjoy some family fun with these fun things to on a rainy day for kids that everyone will love!
Have a Movie Marathon
Rainy days are the perfect excuse to stay in your pajamas, pop a squat on the couch with the gang, and binge-watch your favorite films. Watch animated favorites, dozens of Disney movies, or plow through all the Shrek flicks while munching on your favorite movie snacks.
Play Board or Card Games
Board games are fun and educational ways to pass the time on dreary days. Choose a few funny ones to get the gang giggling, learning board games to make minds work, classic board games, or even DIY board games.
Hold a Read-a-thon
Snuggle up in bed, on the couch, or fashion a reading nook and dive into some good reads. Hold a family read-a-thon where everyone in the house drops what they are doing and immerses themselves in a couple of good books. Set a goal for the number of chapters or picture books to read, and see if your family can reach their goals. If they can, order takeout or make ice cream sundaes as a reward.
Play a Game of Would You Rather
Another wonderful rainy day idea for kids is a few rounds of Would You Rather! This will not only get them thinking about different concepts, but it is also bound to bring some giggles.
Work on Puzzles Together
Pull out a puzzle and work together to complete it on a rainy day. If you have several family members and a couple of puzzles with equal pieces, break into teams and see who can complete their puzzle the fastest.
Fashion a Racetrack for Matchbox Cars
Using masking or painter's tape, make a racetrack sized for matchbox cars on the floor of your home. Weave the roads throughout the rooms, build covered bridges with boxes, and set up small gas stations along the way. This racetrack will keep little ones busy all day long, and clean-up is a cinch. When they tire of the game, just pull the tape up from the floor and toss it out.
Play 20 Questions, With Alexa
For the families who have an Amazon Echo or Dot lying around gathering dust, grab the charger and get ready for some giggles! Alexa is filled with insight, but she also has some ridiculous responses when you ask the right questions. Some of the best inquiries include:
- What noise does a ___________ make?
- Can you tell me a story?
- Can you talk like _________? [Donald Duck, Yoda, Urkel, etc]
- Tell me some trivia.
- Ask for personal details -- How much do you weigh? What is your favorite color? What do you want to be when you grow up?
Make a Splash on Rainy Days
With some thought and consideration, rainy days can suddenly become loads of fun that the entire family looks forward to. They can also be a space to come together and try new activities and games, a day to stay in jammies and relax, or a space to learn and play. Don't dread the dreariness. Plan for it, embrace it, and bring the fun indoors.
