Rainy days stuck at home can potentially be truly miserable for all involved! It’s tempting to turn on the TV or hand your kids an iPad and sometimes much needed. But before you do, here are 15 rainy day activities to try at home with kids – I hope you find them useful.

1) Make ‘musical’ instruments

Elastic bands, empty plastic bottles, tin foil, plastic tubs with lids and dried pasta and rice are just some of the everyday items you could use to make music!  For example, empty plastic bottles can be filled with dried rice to make simple rattles for babies and children and elastic bands can be used to make ‘twanging’ sounds.

2) Play Dough 🌈

Play dough is very good in helping children perfect their fine motor skills and of course, children of all ages love to get stuck in and hands-on and messy!  You can even make your own play dough:

Play dough recipe:

2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 cup warm water
A few drops of food colouring (if youhave it)

3) Grow Cress 🌱

Planting cress is super easy. All you need are cress seeds (you can buy these from the supermarket), kitchen roll or cotton wool, water, yogurt pot, plastic cup, empty egg shell, or a saucer, and a sunny windowsill.

4) Cooking 🍰

Squeezing lemons, stirring, pouring and of course, eating what you make is all good fun. Cooking doesn’t need to be complicated. Have a look at my Recipes page for Spiced Banana Pudding, Pancakes, and Yogurt Pizza recipes for some ideas.

Or, you could try bread decorating with food colouring! Your child simply paints or drips food colouring on bread to make patterns, then it just needs to be toasted and spread with butter or margarine before eating. Rich tea biscuits are also perfect for decorating with coloured icing; to make the icing use icing sugar, water, and food colouring (if you have it).

Your child could even help you make a meal, for example, you could buy/make a pizza base, and use tomato puree, cheese and cans of sweetcorn, pineapple or tuna to make pizza.

5) Dressing-up 🎭

Children of all ages love to dress-up! Dressing-up is not only fun but a good opportunity for kids to learn through role play. Dressing up clothes do not need to be elaborate; some old clothes will suffice. Hats, scarves and spectacles will always be a hit. Even small children love sunglasses and scarves to play peek-a-boo.

6) Make a scrap book

I have made several scrap books for my kids over the years. When my son was little, I made a ‘Memory Scrapbook’ for him and included some of his artwork, a certificate he received from Sing and Sign, photos of interesting things, pictures of animals he learnt about and postcards he had received. I also made a ‘Train Scrapbook’ with him when he went through his train phase.

I also made an alphabet scrapbook with my kids, with a page for each letter of the alphabet and animals and objects starting with each letter, with the aim of teaching them phonics.

Please see my post on making memory scrapbooks for more inspiration.

7) Do some home shopping!

Why not create a shop with items to sell (e.g., pasta, fruit, wooden spoons, etc), real/pretend money to buy things and practise counting, and bags to pack items up.

8) Create a treasure hunt

You could get super creative by writing clues for your kids to find treasure, or you could simply hide the treasure around your home for kids to find, using hot, cold, warm clues.

9) Dance to music 🎵

An easy and non-messy activity for children of all ages. Even young children who are not yet walking can enjoy music.

10) Sticking

A bit more messy than drawing but sticking should keep children occupied for a while. Pieces of cut-up old Christmas cards, bits of coloured paper, wrapping paper, and tissue paper are perfect. Paper plates are also fun to use in place of paper. And of course glitter is always a favourite.

11) Read your child a book / make a reading den📚

So important but I think sometimes underated. You could even make them reading den to encourage them to sit in and read (and give you a few minutes to yourself). I tried to read lots of stories with my children in the hope that they would grow up to have a love of books.

12) Hide and Seek

Another non-mess yet creative activity and one that kids love.  And they will enjoy this activity even more with you playing it with them!

13) Drawing

Give children some paper and crayons and they will be happy and really helpful practice holding crayons/pencils/pens which helps them learn to write when they are older. My daughter has always enjoyed drawing, even when she was little. You could also draw swirly shapes for them to colour in.

14) Get Creative 🎨

Make a den, cut out snowflakes/flowers depending on the season!), make paper aeroplanes, paint pebbles/pine cones, convert a plain cardboard box into a house – just a few ideas!

15) Lego/Duplo Challenge

Who can build the tallest tower? Who can make a the best house/castle/palace? You can make literally anything you want to!

16) Puzzles 🧩

Puzzles are great but if you don’t have any, you could even cut up an old photo or picture into puzzle pieces to reassemble.

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I hope my ideas of creative activities to do with children on a rainy day inspire you and turn what could be a miserable day stuck inside into an enjoyable one instead! 🙂