Rainy Day Activities for Home and School

Years ago when my daughter was still a toddler and still at home all day, I compiled a list of 64 rainy day activities to do with your toddler (also great for sick days, or any other day you need something to do without a lot of effort or leaving the house). Some of these would work in a classroom or with a small group of kids, though some are pretty at-home specific.

I’ve also shared rainy day crafts before, but it feels like there’s always a need for fresh ideas of things to do when the weather is yucky.

It’s always good when you can get kids moving on inside only days, so why not build an indoor balance beam like this one from How We Learn, or make a full on obstacle course with things from around the house or in the classroom? You can use lines of tape for jumping or other motor activities; get ideas from Hands on As We Grow. They’ve also got a post about walking on pillows that is great for doing at home or adding to an obstacle course.

If you’ve got a garage or covered outdoor area you can make a chalk obstacle course, track for playing with cars (that’s How We Learn again) or just let kids draw with chalk.

Building with blocks is a classic rainy day activity, and you can also use blocks to make games, like this block ring toss game from Stir the Wonder. Or grab some balls and make up games like these from Frugal Fun 4 Boys and Girls.

Of course crafts are great for rainy days, too, and you can even make crafts you can enjoy when the weather is better, like this recycled wind chime craft (add some bells to make it really chime rather than just being decoration) from Rainy Day Mum.

I’d love to hear about some of the things you do with kiddos at home or in the classroom to make rainy days a little more fun!

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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