We’ve all spent a lot more time at home over the last few months, which means you’re probably running out of ideas to keep your family entertained. When the weather rules out playing in the garden or taking a nature walk in the park, it can be even trickier to keep youngsters occupied.
However, there’s no need to let boredom get the better of you. Whether need to keep little ones entertained while you’re working from home or you simply want to do something different as a family, take a look at these fun rainy day activities that will keep the kids busy:
- Dress Up
For youngsters, dressing up is an excellent way to unleash their creative side and let their imagination run wild. Dig out your dressing up box or repurpose some of your older items and let the kids create their own epic outfits. Be sure to remove scarves or items with drawstrings and zips in advance, so that kids can play safely and freely.
- Start Baking
If you’ve got time to get involved, baking can be a great way to spend quality time with your kids. Brownies, fairy cakes and cookies are all easy to make and recipes can easily be adjusted to suit young taste buds. Grab some ready-to-pipe icing and let your kids decorate until their heart’s content. As well as getting involved, kids will love eating what they bake.
If you want an activity that older kids can try without immediate supervision, take a look at some no-bake recipes. These are a great way to let kids develop their culinary skills independently, without the need to use the oven or microwave.
- Plan an Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Setting up an indoor scavenger hunt is the perfect way to keep youngsters occupied while you’re on a video call or in a virtual meeting (or just need 10 minutes to yourself!) Hide treats or small toys around the house and write a selection of clues to help them find the next prize. If time’s running out, you can forego the clues and simply let your kids scour the house for what you’ve hidden.
Top Tip: Hide items in advance and keep the scavenger hunt secret until your kids are in need of a distraction. When things start to get a little fractious by mid-afternoon, you’ll be congratulating yourself for your early preparation!
- Do Some Indoor Exercises
When you’re all stuck indoors, it can be tough for kids to get rid of excess energy, which can lead to over-excitable or restless youngsters. To ensure youngsters have an out, try to incorporate some indoor exercises into your routine every day. You can make up your own, follow a live kid’s workout class online or simply blast some music and dance around. When you’re finished, everyone will be tired out and happy to embrace some less physical activities.
- Draw Pictures for Family and Friends
As well as staying at home over the last few months, you’ve probably foregone visits with family and friends too. If you want to remind your loved ones that you’re thinking about them, why not ask your kids to draw some pictures or decorate some cards? Get the arts and crafts supplies out and encourage your kids to be as creative as you like. Posting them to family and friends will brighten up their day and a trip to the letterbox will be a change of scenery for you and the kids!
- Play Balloon Tennis
Indoors isn’t the perfect location for ball games, unless you don’t mind the inevitable breakages that occur. However, if you want to keep your kids busy without putting your décor at risk, try a game of balloon tennis. Blow up a balloon, grab some racquets, bats or use your hands, and see how long you can keep a rally going for. Keeping the balloon off the floor is the ultimate goal, so work together as a team to see how long you can last.
- Having a Family Gaming Session
If your kids are into gaming, why not get involved and turn it into a family activity? It’s a great way to make the most of screen time and you can have a lot of fun in the process. From brain-training, puzzles and role-playing strategy games to racing, action and sports games, there are plenty of titles to try out. Depending on the consoles or mobile phones you have, you might even find that you can download new games or use streaming services for free. Take a look at what your provider offers at sites like, https://halfcooked.co.uk/o2-vs-vodafone-review/, and take advantage of the rewards you’re entitled. An early upgrade might even come with a host of extras, which means it will be easier than ever to keep your kids entertained.
- Wash Toys
Washing toys might not sound like a fun activity to grown-ups but young kids love getting free reign over a bucket of water! Add a small amount of soapy water to a washing up basin and set out some toys for your kids to wash and dry. You’ll need to keep battery-powered and electrical items away from the water, but plastic and wooden toys are perfect for this activity.
- Get Scientific
If you’ve been helping your kids with homeschooling and online learning, you may have already covered some scientific topics, but you can take things a step further by setting up your own experiments. Use lemon juice to make the perfect invisible ink, impress your kids by making an egg fit into a milk bottle or create your very own lava lamp by adding vegetable oil to water and using aspirin to move the oil.
- Make a Bird Feeder
You can make a bird feeder from scratch with household items you have lying around or you can order a ready-to-make kit online. Simply follow the instructions to assemble your bird feeder and research what foods are best to put out at this time of year. Once installed in your garden, create a watchlist so your kids can tick off every type of bird they see using the feeder.
- Take a Virtual Tour
Due to lockdown restrictions, many major attractions are offering virtual tours while they’re closed to in-person visitors. Take a virtual trip around the British Museum in London, the Guggenheim in New York or London’s Natural History Museum. If you can, take a look at your kid’s school syllabus and take a virtual tour of an exhibition that ties in with an upcoming topic.
- Play Board Games
They might be something of a novelty for today’s tech-savvy generation, by board games hold an old-school charm and are a great way to have fun as a family. Set aside one evening week for board games and choose a different game to play each week. Keeping a running tally of who’s winning, and you’ll have a competitive family tournament on your hands in no time.
- Go Indoor Camping
If you thought camping was off the agenda for the foreseeable future, think again! You don’t need a campsite or forest to go on a camping adventure. In fact, you don’t need to go anywhere at all. Grab your sleeping bags, tent and torches and enjoy indoor camping instead. As well as avoiding freezing temperatures, you can combine the fun of camping with the comfort of sleeping in your own bed if the floor gets too uncomfortable!
- Create a Spider Web
Don’t worry, you won’t need to get over your fear of creepy-crawlies to keep your kids entertained! Grab some string, streamers or wool and use it to create your very own obstacle course. Affix multiple pieces of yarn across a hallway or corridor and challenge your kids to make their way through it without touching the string. They’ll have to crawl, clamber, squeeze and twist to navigate their way through the ‘spider web’ and, once they’ve done, challenge them to do it again via a different route.
- Host a Virtual Playdate
No doubt your kids will be missing their friends if they’ve been unable to attend school or go on playdates, so why not give them the chance to catch up via a virtual playdate? Arrange a convenient time with friends and let your kids play together on a video call. This gives you a great opportunity to chat with loved ones, while your kids will be pleased to spend some time with their friends once again.
- Plan a Movie Night
With an endless list of family films to enjoy, a movie night is the perfect way to relax and unwind. Let your kids choose what you watch, microwave some popcorn, get into your pyjamas and grab some blankets to create the ultimate at-home version of a cinema. Work through a film set or catch up on the movies you’ve missed out and you’ll never run out of things to watch.
- Keep Boredom at Bay When You’re Stuck at Home
Spending long periods of time at home can get monotonous, so changing up your routine and doing a different activity every day can help to prevent boredom setting in. Ask your kids to help you schedule some activities for the week and you can be confident that you’ll have a list of things they can’t wait to do.
Disclosure: This is a featured post.