Rainy day activities for kids

Make rainy days happy days
Feature Image: Teddy the Tiger Children's Umbrella by Rex London

In an ideal world, your summer holidays would be wall-to-wall sunshine and the kids would spend six weeks playing happily outside. No one would be bored, everyone would get along, and the days would zoom by. But in real life, British weather is an unpredictable beast and you’ll need to find a way to keep everyone happy on those inevitable soggy afternoons. 

So if it’s raining – again – and you’re at the end of your tether, check out these creative bloggers for fun ideas to keep the kids entertained.

The Imagination Tree

Kids will love this colourful science experiment
Image source: The Imagination Tree

Looking for the “ultimate list of screen-free ideas for rainy days and twitchy kids”? Check out 100+ play ideas for kids over at The Imagination Tree. The site is run by early-years teacher Anna Ranson, and her tutorials are easy to achieve and low-to-no cost. 

Our favourites include getting up to your elbows in bug slime spaghetti, the dramatic dyed flowers science experiment (pictured above), and easy paper bag weaving.

Life Unexpected

Spend rainy days painting rocks to hide when the sun comes out
Image source: Life Unexpected 

Get on board with the latest craze by creating your own painted rocks to hide around your neighbourhood. Find your local rock club on social media – who knows where your rocks will turn up.

If you’re not lucky enough to live near the beach, like Chloe Ciliberto of Life Unexpected, try making your own sand for the kids to play with. Or create a rainbow in your bathtub with rainbow ice cubes. There are tonnes of activities to keep preschoolers happy indoors, including a great busy box DIY.

Brummy Mummy of 2

Snuggle up with a tub of popcorn for movie afternoons. 
Image source: Brummy Mummy of 2

If, like Emma Conway (aka Brummy Mummy of 2), the idea of spending a day at the local soft play gives you the heebie jeebies, and you’ve only just cleared up the carnage from the last crafting session, try her five easy ways to survive school holidays. 

Em’s ultimate favourite is a movie afternoon. “I like my movie afternoons in my bed,” she writes. “There is nothing better in life than cuddles with small children, eating hot popcorn, whilst watching an old classic. Pure perfection.”
 

Toby & Roo

These rain clouds will put a smile on their faces
Image source: Toby and Roo 

The best way to survive rainy school holidays is to “craft like a Pinterest queen with the expectations of a nursery nurse,” advises Harriet Shearsmith of Toby & Roo. 

Fancy brightening up your life with some rainbow tie dye? Harriet and her two boys loved jazzing up their baby sister’s sleepsuits on a rainy summer’s day. There’s also an excellent DIY rain cloud activity, which Harriet describes as “one of the best science activities for kids ever” – who are we to argue?

In The Playroom

This umbrella project is the perfect rainy-day activity
Image source: In the Playroom
 
If it’s raining outside, embrace the weather with an afternoon of rainy-day crafts, suggests Anna Marikar of In The Playroom. Try the cute rainy day umbrellas pictured above, or make your own weather station to keep track of our crazy climate. Anna’s rainy-day crafts are super affordable – learn how to make microwave salt dough, create art from paper plates and try ten different projects with toilet roll tubes.

And for older kids, how about upcycling unwanted clothes? Anna will show you how to turn t-shirts into throw pillows, weave old denim into rugs, or plant up old wellies into flower pots.
 

Here Come the Girls

These stained glass balloons will brighten up a dreary day
Image source: Here Come the Girls

If the view from your window is dull and grey, add some light and colour with the ‘stained glass’ balloons pictured above.  Or hide toy dinosaurs in playdoh eggs to surprise your mini paleontologists. These are just a few of the thousands of ideas on Rebecca English’s Here Come the Girls blog. 

Check out her whopping 365 fun activities for kids and 100 things to do with a cardboard box. For a chilled out afternoon, create a reading nook in their bedrooms with an indoor tent or teepee filled with comfy cushions and pillows. Your kids will love hiding away with a good book or two. 

Sunhats and Wellie Boots

Create a sparkly fairy garden and watch the herbs grow through the holidays
Image source: Sunhats and Wellie Boots 

“On rainy days you'll find us with our wellies & waterproofs heading outside for new adventures. We love outdoor play – whatever the weather!” writes Catherine at Sunhats and Wellie Boots. Check out these twenty ideas for playing in the rain, including going on a worm hunt and investigating and measuring rainfall. 

And once you’re all back in the dry, this blog has plenty of fun indoor activities to get stuck into. Such as making an indoor zip wire that will send their favourite toys zooming across the room, or creating a miniature fairy herb garden. Decorated with sparkly sticks and pixie dust, any flower fairy would be proud to call it their own.

Kids’ Craft Room

Yarn-wrapped wall letters will brighten up their bedrooms
Image source: Kids’ Craft Room 

Help your children revamp their bedrooms with these yarn-wrapped DIY wall letters pictured above: “It’s a fun way for kids to explore colours, textures and patterns and can be as neat or haphazard as kids like, everything looks great!” writes Emma Smith of Kids’ Craft Room. 

Emma’s blog has hundreds of clever ideas made from the most mundane of household objects. Turn paper plates into shark puppets, create a rainbow windsock from a milk bottle, or turn an old cereal box and a bin bag into a dragon hobby horse.
 

Treasure Every Moment

Embrace the rain with a brolly and a picnic
Image source: Treasure Every Moment 

When you’ve had enough of indoor play, it’s time to get outside and beat the wet weather with a kid’s umbrella, says Helen of Treasure Every Moment. 

Daughter Isabella loves going outside with her “handbrella” - made especially for little hands to manage with ease. On rainy days like this, Helen also takes along a flask of warm milk  – her girls’ favourite drink.

Then it’s back home for fun and puzzles. Isabella’s toy of choice is her Elvis the Elephant Stacking Sticks: “If you're looking for fun ways to support your child's fine motor skills then this is the game for them,” writes Helen.

We hope we’ve given you plenty of rainy-day activities to keep up your sleeve. We’d love to see you put them into action – tag your photos with #RexLondon and let us know how they work out.