April showers may bring May flowers, but April showers also bring rampant cabin fever and squirrelly kids! Here are eight boredom-busting, energy-funneling fun rainy day activities to help brighten those days at home.
Sensory Activities
Shaving Cream Rainstorm
Find a big, clear jug or vase. Fill it with water and cover the top of the water with shaving cream. Create a few small bowls with water and a few drops of food coloring. Give the kids eye droppers to drop bits of color on top of the shaving cream and watch what happens as the color passes through the shaving cream “cloud.”
Bonus extension: Once we had our fill of fun watching this beautiful color experiment, my kids had just as much fun dumping the bowls of extra color and stirring everything with spoons.
Potions
Cover your table with a drop cloth. Set up a few small containers of materials like cooking oil, vinegar, water, baking soda, and food coloring. Provide eye droppers, scoops, or syringes, and one big, clear bowl or jar. Invite your child to experiment with dropping different ingredients into the jar. Watch what happens together and discuss the different reactions. Make guesses and test them out. Now you’re scientists as well as potion makers!
Tips: Save cleaned-out, old, small yogurt containers to use as bowls for these activities. You don’t need to run out and buy eye droppers! Clean out and save syringes and eye droppers from old baby and toddler medicines. The booger suckers that everyone gets from the hospital but no one seems to use also work great here. All these tools are fantastic fine motor practice for kids as well as great science experiment tools!
Edible Play Foam
Need something safe for an older baby/young toddler to get into? Save the water from your can of garbanzo beans. Add a few drops of food coloring and beat it with an electric beater on high for 5 minutes. Lay down a drop cloth on the floor, put the foam in a low-sided bin, and set the baby up there to play. They’ll have a great, messy time, and it’s safe to put in their mouth!
Tip: You may want to have them wear nothing but a diaper unless you have a small smock!
Art Activities
Window Markers
Another fun rainy day activity is using window markers. Crayola makes markers that are meant for windows. Kids really enjoy using them, and they are very easy to clean up. Help bring fun to a drab day by letting the kids make art in a place where it is usually not allowed.
Bonus extension: Kids enjoy cleaning it up as much as they enjoy the drawing. Give them baby wipes and challenge them to wipe the slate clean and start all over again.
Tip: To fully clean up, a grownup will want to come through later with a paper towel and some window cleaner to clear the streaks.
Sun Catchers
Cut out a large piece of contact paper sticky-side-up on the table or even the floor, and get ready to stick tissue paper all over it. If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a stash of old gift bags somewhere, so use the tissue paper from there! Invite your child to tear it up and stick it to the contact paper. Help them explore what happens to colors as you layer them. Experiment with bunching it up or laying it flat. You can guide bigger kids to try to create designs or pictures while smaller kids have a great time just laying out different colors. When you’re finished, cover over with another piece of the same-sized contact paper sticky-side down. Find a window to put it up in! Spend some time looking at the colors together on a rainy day, and come back to look at it again on a sunny day, and notice what you see looks different.
Big Body Play
Paper Plate “Ice Skating”
Go to a room with wooden or tile floors. Give each child a paper plate per foot and invite them to “skate” around the room on them. They’ll have to hold their feet to the floor hard and shuffle around. It’s a great way to get energy out. Experiment with small spins! Put on music and try going fast and slow to match the beat!
Magic Scarf
Put on some music and find a scarf (or hat or any easily removed accessory). Declare the rule that whoever wears the scarf is the leader. The leader dances any way they please, and everyone has to mirror their bodies to do what the leader does. After a while, the leader passes the hat to another family member, and it is their turn to lead the dance.
Tip: If the leaders are having trouble relinquishing power, set a timer for taking turns!
Make a Splash!
There is something so exciting about the semi-forbidden fruit of splashing in puddles. If it isn’t raining too hard, put on rain coats and tall rain boots and take a puddle walk. Explore the neighborhood and take time to tap your toes or stomp your feet in every puddle you find. It will get out energy, get you out of the house, and get your kids giggling!
Tip: My family has a firm rule that your feet can only go in puddles if you are wearing rain boots. It may save you future headaches to set this rule up front!
Do you have any fun rainy day activities that your family does? Please share in the comments below.
