Play Time! Rainy Day Activities for Little Ones

Today is a beautiful, bluebird day (yay! gardening!) but the past week has been miserable and wet, wet, wet.

Yesterday I had two of my nephews over for the morning and I was at a loss of what to do activities-wise when the weather was so crappy outside. So I did a bit of rummaging in the useful box and decided to make some treasure boxes. I just grabbed some old kraft paper boxes I had left over from my jewellery days (but any box will do), some glue sticks, pencils, glitter, feathers, crepe paper etc and let them go crazy, decorating a special box to keep their precious treasures in.

The boxes were fun, but going berserk with the craft supplies was much more fun, it seems.

Anyway, it got me thinking that I really need to have a list of rainy day activities at the ready, because aside from DVDs, puzzles and drawing, I haven't really had much to offer. So I've done a bit of reading and put together a list of a few activities your kids/nieces/nephews/grandkids/neighbours will love on a crummy weather day:

• Indoor obstacle course - Set up a course of chairs, towels, hula hoops, blocks, whatever, and create challenges for each obstacle. Eg: hop over the towel, slither under the chair, blow a marble across the carpet and build a tower of blocks. It should also help to burn off a bit of the ol' cabin fever that kids are prone to!
• Sorting Games - Grab an empty egg carton, some different coloured objects/pieces of paper/bottle lids and get the kids to sort them into colours. Simple but it seems to work!
• Build a table cubby - drape a couple of sheets over your dining table and presto! Indoor hideout.
• Floor Roads - Put some masking tape on the carpet and create roadways, paths, rivers and bridges. Toy cars and prams are perfect to use on the roads.
• Play Rice - (via How To Be a Badass Dad) Set up a table with cups, bowls, funnels etc and pour some rice/macaroni/beans/lentils etc out for the kids to play with. If they're anything like Isy, this will be right up their alley.
• Playdough - Awesome by itself or combined with stamps, cookie cutters, rolling pins, paddlepop sticks etc. Playdough is ridiculously fun. And strangely therapeutic (for adults, I mean!)

PS: Glitter and kids under 5 = bad idea. Just sayin'.