It’s getting to that time of year! It’s cold and dark outside, so you may be looking for some free rainy day activities that the kids can do indoors.

Keeping your children entertained doesn’t have to be expensive! There are plenty of things you can do for free or using the items you already have in your own home!

Kids have such a big imagination and really thrive when you take some time to do things with them, so I do encourage you to do some of these fun rainy day activities with them, although they can play them on their own if you have other things you need to be doing.

Have a treasure hunt

Treasure hunts are so fun! There are many ways you could do a treasure hunt at home.

You could simply hide items for them to find, you could play ‘hot and cold’ where you say ‘hot’ if they are close’ and ‘cold’ if they are far away from the object (I loved playing this game when I was younger!). Or you could even write clues that read to more hidden clues until they find the final one – this would be more suited to older children.

Kids always love the challenge of trying to find something that’s hidden away. You could even get them to hide it and try and find it yourself.

Play board games

What’s your favourite board games? I used to love Connect4, Battleships and Monopoly. Playing a board game with your kids is a lovely way to spend some time together and have some fun.

Watch a movie together

Raid the fridge and get some snacks together, then sit down and enjoy a family film together!

Play computer games

Plays.org is a website that has lots of free games. There are so many different things to pick from and these games will keep your kids entertained for hours.

There are games based on cartoons and superheroes, like this Batman Gotham City Speed game. Take it in turns and try to get the highest score. I’m sure there’s a game that features your child favourite character! Just check the search bar and see what comes up.

There’s also some educational games on there, like Math Boy – where you have to do the equation before the monster hits you!

You could spend a whole day playing different games together. There are many games that have a manageable amount of levels so you can work together to complete. Or you could play many of the shorter games where you can take it in turns to get the best score.

Bake

Baking with the kids is so much fun! You can make simple things like cookies with only a few ingredients! See what you have in the kitchen and get baking.

If you don’t have the right ingredients for a specific recipe, you could always challenge the kids to make something up and see how it goes! I realise this is risky but fun!

Learn something new

Get on the internet and start learning something new! There are so many topics that are interesting, get them to pick a topic and find out 10 facts about it!

Some topic ideas:

• New York (or any city!)
• World War 2
• The solar system
• An animal
• History of their favourite sport
• How something is made
• Different body parts

Build an indoor obstacle course

Building an obstacle is always a popular choice when thinking about things to do on a rainy day! Grab chairs, beanbags and other items to build them a fun course they have to race along. Don’t forget, the floor is always lava in these types of games!

Write a letter to Santa

It’s not long until Christmas now, so it would be a good idea to get your kids to write their letters to Santa. Get them to tell him all about their year. Bonus – listing the things they want is also a great way to get gift ideas from them!

I hope you’ve started saving for Christmas already – if not, this is your reminder!

Facetime with relatives

It’s so important to catch up with loved ones, why not grab a cup of tea and let your kids speak to their grandparents on a video call! I’m sure their grandparents would love to hear about what is going on in their little lives.

Teach your kids a card game

What was your favourite card game to play when you were younger? We used to play Go Fish! I also had a book that had lots of different card games in, so every so often my mum and I would learn a new game and play together, it was so much fun!

We also used to learn some card magic tricks and practice shuffling cards in a fancy way.

Do some origami

Origami is a cool thing to be able to do! This website shows you a step-by-step guide for how to fold paper to make it into origami animals and other items!

Learn the phonetic alphabet

I used to be able to do this off by heart – let me try now.

Alpha, bra, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot, golf, hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, lima, mike, November, oscar, papa, Quebec, Romeo sierra, tango, uniform, victor, whiskey, x-ray, Yankee, Zulu.

Okay, I had to look up about 5 but got most of them right. I’m not sure why I find this so much fun but I do? Its just fun to be able to say them all, then for an extra challenge, get them to do it backwards.

Learn the states and their capitals

This is something I’d love to do! Learn the American states and capital cities. I’m always so impressed when you see kids doing this in TV shows! Could even go one step further and name the NFL football team for each state!

Play Chess

This is another game I used to play with my mum! Surprisingly, I still know how to play! If you don’t have a chessboard at home, then you can play on Plays.org here either against the computer or play with each other.

What rainy day activities do you do with your kids?