Rainy days can be dull for a child and just as hard on whoever is looking after them. Here are some ideas to chase away the rainy day blues, all using what is already in the house.
Shadow puppets
In a fairly dark room, set up a torch facing a blank wall. Hands between the light and the wall make animals; cut-out card shapes on sticks make anything else.
The good part is that it becomes a whole afternoon rather than a single activity – making the puppets, then writing a story, then performing it. Hanging a sheet turns it into a theatre.
Indoor dens
A blanket over a table, or between two chairs. Underrated by adults and enormously absorbing for children.
Add a torch, some cushions and a book and it occupies far longer than it has any right to.
Cardboard box construction
The most reliable material there is. A large box becomes a house, a car, a shop, a rocket. A few cut windows, some crayons, and it holds attention for hours.
Baking
Wet weather is exactly the occasion for it. Biscuits are the best choice – quick, forgiving, and the decorating is the fun part.
Give each child their own to decorate rather than a share of one cake, so nobody is waiting.
Yarn crafts
Finger knitting needs no tools at all and produces a cord within minutes. Pom-poms are almost impossible to get wrong. Weaving on a cardboard loom produces a small mat.
All dry, all contained, and all real skills rather than time-filling.
Collage
Old magazines, catalogues and scissors. Cutting and sticking is absorbing and requires no skill to produce something satisfying.
Treasure hunt
Write clues and hide them around the house. Fifteen minutes of adult preparation buys a considerable amount of time, and children will then want to make one for you.
Sorting and collecting
Buttons, coins, stones, buttons by colour. Sounds dull and small children find it genuinely absorbing.
What makes any of it work
It should finish in a sitting, forgive imprecision, have no single right answer, and produce something worth showing.
Set up somewhere that can be messy and say so out loud. Prepare everything before you start. And resist improving their work – the wonky thing they made is the point.
