Rainy Day Activities for Kids

Rainy Day Activities for Kids

By Babysits
5 min read

Unfortunately, sometimes the weather makes it impossible to go play outside or take a planned trip with kids. In these cases, it can be hard to come to a consensus over what activity to do or come up with new activities as alternatives.. Luckily, that’s why we’ve put together a list of some of our favorite rainy day activities for kids!

Indoor treasure hunt

Ahoy Pirates: Let’s organize a true treasure hunt! The more imagination and creativity you add, the more exciting it becomes for all pirates involved.

  • Classic treasure hunt

If you want to go all in, you can organize a treasure hunt like the classic pirates. You can make a message in a bottle, and leave it floating in the bathtub or sink for the children to find! This bottle contains a letter and a treasure map with lots of different clues and hints. From here, the children can go on an adventure, exploring the house and looking for clues. Prepare various hiding places and tasks the children have to do in order to get closer to the treasure.

  • Picture treasure hunt

A slightly simpler option is to do a picture treasure hunt, where you hide small pictures in different places in the house. The children receive the first note or drawing representing a place or object in the house; for example, the fridge or the sofa. On the sofa there is a new note showing a new hiding place; until they arrive at the real treasure! This game can also be partially prepared ahead of time; all of the notes and hints can be prepared beforehand so that you can hide them and set up the treasure hunt more quickly!

Party or board games

In today's world, where screens occupy a large part of our everyday lives, classic board games are disappearing from the scene. Dust off those old games and find ones that match the age of your children. Take your time and play a long round of your favorite games. Some of the classics are Sorry, Monopoly, Scrabble, or Catan.
If you do not have fun party games at home, there are actually a lot of games that you can put together yourself. Pantomime, drawing, and guessing games are, for example, games that you can easily make up yourself. All you have to do is write down some words (or draw, depending on the age of the children) to either present, draw, or explain.
One very funny game is the "who am I?" Game: here you write the names of some famous people, well-known series characters, or even some family members on small pieces of paper that can stick to the other players’ foreheads. Then everyone takes turns asking “yes” or “no” questions and tries to guess who they are. Am I a woman? Am I living in the USA? Am I a real person? These and other questions can help you figure out who you are, and win!

Build a pillow fort

Use chairs, sofas, pillows and blankets to build the coolest and biggest pillowfort of all time! This pillow castle is certainly comfortable to read or draw in, but the imagination knows no bounds and the kids can make believe whatever they want in the pillow fort. Do you have a shop, a school or maybe a real castle with princes and princesses? Build your own little world in your living room or the nursery!
If several children are present, you can also have each child build his or her own fort. Then, the kids have their own little house and they can play fun games: greeting each other, shopping in the other's shop, or leaving mail in the mailboxes of others.

Dress up

Look through your costume box or even just old clothes and let the dress up begin! Here, of course, you can use what you have and recombine clothes or be creative and come up with your own crazy costumes. If someone in the family can draw well or put on makeup, you can even put makeup on everyone’s faces to match the costumes. With the help of a few crafting items, you can make cat ears, a tail or an elephant's trunk. It is also funny to be dressed as people you know or as your favorite animal.
In addition, you can dress up as a different professions and play games in the roles. For example, one person may dress up as a policeman and another as a thief, and then chase each other all over the house.

Cinema night (or day)!

All kids love a great movie night! And the more creativity and imagination you involve, the more enjoyable the whole evening will be. Begin by picking a movie (probably the biggest challenge of all) and appoint a ticket vendor. They make cinema tickets and arranges seats and briefings. Someone else can be the kiosk vendor where you can buy popcorn and drinks and then the movie night can already begin.
To make the movie night a little more educational, you can ask questions about the movie, discuss the movie, and have the kids rate it. Keep track of different things that happened in the movie to see what they remember and how much they understood.


*If you spoil the kids with these games and activities for bad weather, they will not be able to wait for the next rainy day. But if the weather gets better, you'll also find our 4 best outdoor activities here.

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