Things To Play Indoors On A Rainy Day

Never let your kids get bored again on a rainy day indoors with these fun activities and games that make great use of your every day household equipment, and existing toys and games you have already got in the home.

Read Stories Together:

Read and discuss a book or a chapter of a book, make up your own endings. You can even make up your own stories by sitting the kids in a ring and letting them "add a sentence". We've made up lots of really funny stories this way.

Wall Painting:

Go to a charity shop or wallpaper shop and buy leftover rolls of wallpaper. Cover a wall with the paper, back to front, stick it up with blu-tac or drawing pins.

Give the kids paints, crayons, chalks pens etc and let them create their own frieze. The little ones reach the bottom, whilst the big ones can reach up to the top.

Crayon Masterpieces:

Give the kids their old, wax crayon stubs and let them make shavings from them with a butter knife onto a piece of wax paper. When they're done, carefully take their creations to the ironing board, lay another piece of wax paper on top, and briefly press with a warm iron.

Let the kids watch as the colours melt together. Put them on the table to cool down and harden.

Dressing Up Games:

Sort through all of your old clothes. There's bound to be something that doesn't fit, or isn't in fashion and that you're too embarrassed to take to a charity shop. If you haven't got anything at all ask your friends and family.

Get 2 cardboard boxes, one for "dress up" clothes, and one for rags. Fill the "dress up" box with the most outrages clothes, and cut up the other clothes for the "rags" box. Let the kids play "dress up", or let them create things with the rags.

Hours and hours of fun!

Make Finger Puppets and Put On A Show:

Let the kids make finger puppets from paper, help them to create a "show" with a script and characters. Build up a few boxes stuck together with packing tape, make the top one have an opening at the front and hang up a curtain (you can use rags from the rag-box for this).

Let the kids practice until they feel really confident then invite a few friends or family members over to watch the "show".

Bake Up A Storm:

Find some cookery books, let the kids choose a simple recipe and work together on making dinner, desserts, snacks or cakes. The older ones can do the main cooking, and the younger ones can do the measuring or decorating.

Make Your Own Worm Farm:

Get a large clear plastic container, some soil, leaves, a little sand, and some bits of vegetables to create the farm. Dig up some earthworms. Fill the container with loose layers of soil and sand, beginning with soil and alternating the layers. Make the soil layers about 4x the size of the sand layers. Also make sure the top layer is soil. 4 or 5 layers should be enough. Drop some small bits of vegetables and leaves on top, and then put the worms in.

Add a lid of some sort, making sure it has air holes. Put the newly created worm farm in a cool dark place for a few days. The worms will tunnel down through the layers, and the kids can see just how good they are at churning up the soil. Please remember to let the worms go when the kids have finished with them.

Make Your Own Necklaces:

Collect beads, buttons and string in a shoebox. When the kids are bored, bring out the shoebox and let them make necklaces and bracelets. There's bound to be tons of beads and buttons you can salvage from the rag-box.

Make Your Own Mosaics:

Collect a whole bunch of colourful magazines and some small sheets of cardboard (A4 size is good). Give the kids a sheet of cardboard each, some PVA glue and some magazines.

Let them rip up and tear the magazines to their hearts content and create mosaic pictures or collages.

Traditional Board Games:

Board games are always a huge hit, so make sure you have plenty of them handy, everything from the simplest to the most advanced.

Come up with new ways of playing the games; under a blanket with a torch, under the table, out in the shed, or even with new "home-made" rules etc. It will add that little bit of excitement to games the kids may be tired of.

Make Up Spooky Stories:

If you're ready for a sleepless night, try an evening of spooky stories.

First, find a couple of torches, then cover a table with a heavy blanket. The goal here is for the kids (and you) to make up creepy stories as ghoulish as they dare.

Everybody crouches under the table, with just the lights from the torches and takes turn telling stories. Depending on the age of the kids participating, be prepared to be freaked out!

Plant A Bean:

Kids of all ages love this one, because it's not just sticking a seed into soil and hoping it will grow. This way you can tell when it starts rooting.

Get a paper towel, fold it into a medium sized rectangle then dampen it. Put the bean seed between the 1st layer and the rest of the damp paper towel, and place the whole lot into a small plastic bag. A Ziploc sandwich bag works great for this.

Use a strip of masking tape on the bags with each child's name on it so they can check on their seeds progress. Close the bag and put it kind of dark but in a place where kids can walk up to check on their seeds and see the wonders of nature in action.

Design A Golf Course:

Get the kids to sit down together and design a crazy golf course to run throughout the house (or just one room if you might have problems getting them to clean up afterwards). Use toys, bathroom stuff, kitchen utensils or anything else at hand to create the "holes" and routes.

Small plastic golf sets are easy to come by in most toy shops, and they're usually extremely cheap. Have treats ready for whenever a child reaches the end of the golf course.