Rainy Day Activities For Toddlers
A weird phenomenon is occurring in Southern California. It is pouring rain, and has been for almost 2 weeks. This is a great, almost miraculous thing for our severe drought, but as a mom of a 3 and 1 year old….. I’m over it. My kids, who are used to the sunny weather this state is known for, are restless and tearing my house apart, not to mention my nerves. So I’ve had to get creative and come up with things for them to do to keep us from just watching tv for the rest of the storm week.
Off to pinterest I go. Here’s an issue though, a lot of these ideas ‘look’ great on pins, but if I really picture my kids doing them, disaster comes to mind. No, I’m not gonna let my kids barefoot paint on a roll of craft paper, because they will inevitably run off and leave tracks. No, I’m not gonna spend 3 hours crafting a sensory board out of feathers, beads or whatever only to have them tire of it 2 minutes later. No, I’m not gonna give my toddler buttons to sort into a container with a hole on top (actual pin I found… c’mon! Do you actually have a kid? You’re gonna be finding diaper buttons for days!) I need easy, real ideas that can actually keep my kids entertained and won’t take me hours to clean up after.
This is what I’ve come up with on my own using random things around the house, from pinterest, and one unfortunate purchase.
1- Toilet Paper Roll Bowling. Have you been squirreling away rolls like I have for a day such as this? All you need is any small ball (or even rolled up socks) and a few empty rolls. After a quick demo, TONS of fun!
2- Coloring inside a box – Tell your kids it’s time to decorate their castle or fort and this idea practically sells itself.
3- Balloon baseball – A little refereeing might be needed if you have more than one child, but this is soooo easy to put together and can really let your little one work out some of that pent up energy.
4-This toddler target practice box looks like it would keep both my kids interested for at least a half hour at a time. I’m gonna try this out later this week, my version will undoubtedly look like a pinterest fail but, as long as it works, I’m ok with that.
5- Construction Paper mosaic – sounds fancy right? Nope. I had my 3 year old try this a few weeks ago. Basically gave her a bunch of different size and shape pieces of paper, a little cup of water and a brush, planted her in front of the sliding glass door and let her go to town “decorating”. She loved it and the clean up was so easy. Most fell off on their own after a while and I just wiped the window clean.
6- My one year old liked this pom pom activity. It wasn’t long before he took the roll off the wall and used it as a microphone/telescope, but hey that’s cool too.
7-Have a dance party. I’ve been putting the bluetooth speaker Hubby gave me for Christmas to good use and just dancing it out with the kids. Pandora is our friend.
8-If you have an older child that is good with safety scissors, this one is a good idea to try. They can then glue the scraps to sheets of paper and make art.
9- Drawing and coloring. Don’t underestimate the power of this old standby as a nice distraction for the kids. I let my daughter trace with cookie cutters and with random small lids and cups.
10- The big fail that sort of worked. I was at the dollar store this week and saw a Valentine’s day velcro board and small ball game. I quickly thought it would be a good thing to have for the upcoming rainy days and grabbed it without much thought. Turns out it’s a lovey dovey suggestions game. Nothing x-rated but still kinda weird. Good thing my kids can’t read, they’re been having tons of fun throwing the little balls and landing on stuff like “give me a massage’ and “cuddle time”.
What are your favorite Rainy or Snowy day activities? Leave me a comment with your suggestions, we have a few more days of rain and I’d love to try something new 
You can also check out my pinterest Kids Crafts board for more ideas.