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This summer has already brought its fair share of wet, rainy days. When rain—or a pandemic—keeps your children inside, it can be hard to keep everyone entertained. Keep busy with your little ones this ‘La Nina’ Australian summer with our very best activities for rainy days. From easy craft activities to fun exercise ideas, these are suggestions that will see the whole family through the wet weather. Check out our best boredom-busting games, crafts, and activities below.
Toddlers are often some of the hardest to keep busy when going to play outside is not an option due to rain. With all of their energy pent up, they require creative ways to let it out and start moving while indoors. How about cranking up the tunes and having a dance party at home? Try musical statues, musical chairs or have a competition for the silliest dance moves. Get grooving!
Blanket forts can become several worlds, all in the space of your living room. Building them can take as much time as you like, be done over and over again with new twists and variations, and be enjoyed for minutes, hours, or days before you take it down and start anew. Start by grabbing some blankets and pillows and let their imaginations take over.
Dress-up activities for children are a guaranteed hit with young and older children alike. Create new characters and play pretend for hours at a time. You can make use of old clothing items, Halloween costumes or make your own props from recycled materials. Ask them to become their favourite animal, play wizards, try out future careers – the list is endless. You should get involved and show the children your own skills at dressing up. A parent fashion show could be lots of laughs for all!
When children don’t have appropriate channels to release their energy and emotions, it can manifest as irritable and aggressive behaviour. But being stuck inside doesn’t have to be miserable and gloomy. Indoor obstacle courses are a great way to use both the brain and the body and burn off negative behaviours. Ask your children to be involved in making the obstacle course as much as possible, stacking pillows, buckets and other items around the house. Try the floor is lava, create a maze, add a balance beam or ask them to army crawl throughout the house.
Keeping children engaged in learning while at home is important to their continual development. Why not try out an easy at-home science experiment that can be done with everyday household items, demonstrating some of the abstract concepts they may have only heard about before. Watch them be amazed by walking water between cups using food colouring, creating instant ice in the freezer, demonstrating the water cycle using shaving cream, or creating a volcano with vinegar and baking soda.
Cooking with children is not only fun and affordable, but it’s also great for giving them some life skills and practising fine motor skills. Rainy days are a great excuse to get them into the kitchen. Whether mixing, slicing with supervision, or laying out the paper plates, there’s a job for children of all ages. Not only will they feel important and useful, but they’ll also be proud they helped make something. If cooking a meal is too complex or messy, you can try asking them to decorate pre-made cupcakes instead.
Have lots of boxes leftover from Christmas gifts? Cardboard boxes can provide hours of entertainment to creative little minds. Grab some tape, markers, glue, paper, crayons – you name it – and let the creativity start flowing. By working as a whole family, children can develop cooperation and problem-solving skills, and everyone can enjoy the end result. Some of our favourite Heritage House cardboard creations have been robots, pirate ships, lightsabers and dinosaurs.
Turn the family room into your own personal theatre with a good movie night. You may be stuck at home, but with a little bit of work, a movie night can feel like a night out on the town. Try a series marathon, or settle in for a family favourite with some yummy snacks. What’s better than cuddling up with your children on a gloomy, wet night?
After an activity that will engage your children in sensory play? Try out a toy car wash. Line up all the toy cars in the household, spray them all over with shaving cream or dishwashing liquid, fill up a sensory bin with water and a little blue dye. You not only have created an activity to keep them busy and entertained, but their toys will be nice and clean afterwards. Bonus!
If you are sick of being stuck inside due to the rain, why not embrace the wet weather and grab their gumboots for some water play? Regardless of age, children are drawn to puddles. It is perfectly acceptable to let children play in the rain providing they’ve dressed appropriately. Puddle jumping is a great game and one that they will not need a lot of coaxing to participate in.
The next time your children are complaining because they’re bored and stuck inside this summer, just whip out this handy-dandy list to save the day. For more information about our childcare services and our programming, call your local Heritage House centre or contact us online.