Rainy Day, Any Day, Activities
It's the end of the school holiday and the forecast is a week of in rain, Autumn is approaching fast.... so I thought I'd write down some rainy day activities that go down well here at home...
Sensory Play
Aqua Crystals or Water Beads are great fun… and only cost approximately £1 a packet. Obviously they are not designed a toy so you do need to supervise your little one. They are very tiny and take a couple of hours to grow. We like playing with them most during the growing phase. Learn more from Laughingkidslearn.
Sensory boxes filled with… pasta, pom-poms, ribbons, pegs, buttons, dried beans or rice. Put some small bowls, jugs, egg cups, a variety of spoons or kitchen tongs with it and let them play.
Decorative Glass Pebbles
You wouldn’t believe you can get three children fighting over these but each of my children from 3 to 9 years love playing with decorative glass pebbles – you can get a bag for £3, they love sorting out the colours, making pictures with them, and counting them.
Playdough
All kids love playdough. If you would like to make your own, at toddler group we use this no cook recipe from the Imagination Tree.
Stick in googly eyes, gems, big buttons and lolly pop sticks to give variety to your playdough play. Here are six simple playdough activities from Picklebums for more inspiration. Picklebums also have some fabulous free printable playdough mats.
Art Ideas
Aluminium Foil Painting
Instead of painting on paper, give them some foil wrapped round some cardboard, and add a little glue to the paint so it doesn’t flake off. E is always very proud of their “shiny painting”. Click here for more informations from Picklebums.
Shaving Foam Puffy Paint
E loved making these puffy paint pictures, and you can get a value bottle of shaving foam for around 40p, I must admit we didn't get the consistency quite right but she loved doing it. The next day we used up the shaving foam playing with it in the sink. Find out how to make puffy paint pictures from Onelittleproject.
Cake Paint
Mix 1 cup flour with 3 tsp baking powder. Add water to make smooth consistency. Divide into 4 parts, add food colouring, put in food bags and seal. Snip a tiny hole in bag, squeeze to paint onto cardboard, then pop paper in microwave for 30-45 seconds and watch the paint puff up and grow.
Paint Big! Paint Messy!
Put a big piece of lining paper on the floor… you can draw round your child and paint in the picture, or make hand/foot prints. Just let your child paint BIG!
Let them get their hands in the paint, experiment with colour, just put a couple of blobs of paint and let them spread it around. it's pure joy. Be MESSY!
By the way, I try to avoid using red paint with my kids as a teacher who once ran a toddler group I attended used to say that red was a nightmare to get out of clothes, so she never had red paint at the group.
Sticking without the Glue…
E’s really been into cutting things up recently, so inspired by this post from Picklebums, I made her a frame with some sticky backed plastic on, then she cut up lots of different things and she put them on sticky backed plastic forming a great picture to go in the window.
Make Some Noise
Make some plastic bottle instruments. Our music box has bottles with 5ps in (very noisy!), rice, lentils etc. It's cheap and cheerful and decorated with stickers. Plastic Easter eggs make great shakers too. Superglue the lids on the bottle and lots of sellotape around the eggs. No bottles? Get out your saucepans and some wooden spoons and get banging!
Run your own mini Rhyme Time, with stories and songs. Your little one will love it.
A Bit of Fun
Paper Rockets are great fun, all you need is a straw, a piece of paper and cellotape. Here are some printable rockets from Picklebums, which explains what to do.
Flying Fish Spinners is another simple fun idea from Onetimethrough. Click here for instructions.
Dragon / Dinosaur Eggs
These are great fun and to my surprise they all ate the egg afterwards too! Click here for intructions from Kimberly Low's Blog. Having made these for lunch, we watched One of Our Dinosaurs is missing in the afternoon.
Make a cardboard box vehicle…
It doesn't have to be a work of art, but you can't go wrong with a cardboard box car / bus / train. Warning, they live in your house a long time afterwards, but they do get played with lots!
Masking Tape Spiders Web
Here are some great indoor gross motor skills activities for rainy day ideas from No Time for Flash Cards... We've made a masking tape spiders web and had great fun throwing newspaper at it.
Fuzzy Felt
Fuzzy felt is really easy to make yourself and felt isn't very expensive. You can use templates to make things but the easiest for anyone to make (and the most popular in our household, they all like playing with it) is the monsters/aliens fuzzy felt.
Indoor Snow Ball Fight!
J was complaining that we hadn't had snow in ages and he really wanted to have a snowball fight, so we made some giant pom-poms (wrap the wool around your hands, tie in the middle and cut the ends). One ball of basic value wool makes about twenty snow balls... then let the snow ball fight commence.
Let's Pretend
,
Make a tent with blankets and chairs, go on a bear hunt, put two chairs together and make a boat, sit in your car and let your little one pretend to drive, put all your chairs in a row and play at trains or buses, or throw your cushions on the floor and play at stepping stones or islands, but make sure the sharks don't get you!
Ready, Steady, Bake! or just MIX!
It's great fun weighing the ingredients, mixing and baking together, and afterwards you get to eat it.
Very often my youngest wants to keep on mixing, so I pour a bit of milk in the bottom of a bowl, and keep adding different ingredients. She loves to smell the different herbs and spices, watch the reactions that take place. It's a stinky, messy mixture that's left, but it keeps her entertained.
Have fun, enjoy your day playing!
Comments