A rainy day can quickly turn into a battle against boredom and lead to children spending endless hours on their screens. Fortunately, there are plenty of rainy day activities for kids that encourage creativity, problem-solving, and family connection without relying on tablets, TVs, or smartphones.
While rainy days can happen year-round, they’re especially common during the fall, when sporadic rain showers paired with cooler weather bring everyone indoors. Having a few go-to rainy day activities can help families avoid the last resort: letting the day turn into hours of screen time. So, if the forecast has everyone stuck at home, try out these simple screen-free activities instead.
Discover rainy day activities for kids that keep boredom at bay without relying on screens.
Build a Pillow Fort
Few rainy day activities are as timeless as building a fort. Gather blankets, pillows, cushions, and chairs, then create a cozy hideaway for reading, storytelling, or imaginative play.
Often, a novel, cozy setting can make children more willing to try something new instead of falling back on their favorite video game or TV show.
Bake Something Together
Rainy days are perfect for spending time in the kitchen and making warm, comforting baked goods. Whether your children love fluffy home-baked bread with butter, classic chocolate chip cookies, or a cinnamon-spiced apple crisp, the promise of delicious food can be a great motivator. Let children measure ingredients, stir batter, decorate treats, or help prepare a favorite family recipe.
If you’d like to discover a new fall family recipe that draws inspiration from other cultures, check out our blog post: Fall Foods Around the World: Cozy Recipes to Make with Kids.
Put Together a Puzzle
Can’t piece together an effective way to keep the children engaged on a rainy day? A puzzle is a great place to start!
Puzzles can keep children’s hands and minds occupied for hours, all while providing several cognitive benefits, including improving short-term memory and executive functioning skills. Younger children may enjoy simple picture puzzles while older kids can tackle larger designs that encourage teamwork and patience.
Imaginative Play
Without screens to fall back on, you’d be surprised how quickly younger children turn to their imaginations for entertainment. There are endless scenarios you can act out or imagine alongside them; some ideas to get you started include:
- Having a tea party with stuffed animals
- Playing doctor and patient
- Using a play kitchen to cook and serve pretend food
- Pretending to be characters from your children’s favorite books or TV shows
- Having a sword fight with foam swords or paper towel tubes
- Using their favorite toys to act out imaginative scenes
Get Creative
When you’re stuck indoors on a rainy fall day, arts and crafts are some of the best activities for kids. Pull out markers, construction paper, glue, paint, popsicle sticks, and any other craft materials you have on hand. Children can make seasonal decorations, homemade greeting cards, family portraits, or artwork inspired by nature.
For more creative ideas, read: Fall Crafts for Kids Inspired by Cultures Around the World.
Read Aloud Together
Choose a chapter book, picture book, or collection of short stories and spend some time reading together. A rainy afternoon can be the perfect excuse to slow down, get lost in a good book, and spend time together as a family.
Write or Draw a Story
Encourage children to create their own stories with unique characters and adventures or storylines inspired by their favorite books. Younger kids may prefer drawing pictures, while older children can write stories or self-illustrated comics.
After the story is complete, consider acting it out as a family. Bring the story to life by dressing up in costumes and reading (or improvising) each scene together!
Try a STEM Challenge
For children interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects, STEM challenges are an ideal way to combine learning and play.
Common STEM challenges for kids include building paper airplanes, Rube Goldberg machines, popsicle stick catapults, paper parachutes, and homemade roller coasters.
If you’d like an outdoor rainy day STEM activity (and the weather permits), have your children build homemade boats to race along water flows or float in puddles. Children can experiment with different designs and materials to see which boats float the longest or travel the fastest.
Play Outside
Depending on the weather, an hour outdoors during a rain shower can be a fun way to burn off pent-up energy and explore the changing environment.
If there’s no thunder, lightning, high winds, or low temperatures, ask your children if they’d like to get dressed up in their rain gear and head outside. They can splash in puddles, listen to the sound of rain pattering on overhead tree canopies, explore the garden and search for sheltering bugs, and watch as leaves and sticks race down the street in little streams of water. For children who tend to stay indoors whenever there’s rain, this can be a fun opportunity to learn how the environment changes with the weather.
Once children go back inside, they can enjoy a hot bath or shower, bundle up in blankets, and do indoor activities that feel even cozier now that they’re warm and dry.
Learn About Another Culture
Rainy days can also be opportunities for cultural discovery. Try reading a folktale from another country, learning an international game, exploring how families celebrate fall around the world, or cooking an international recipe together.
For families who host an au pair, rainy days can become especially rewarding. An au pair might introduce a favorite childhood game, share stories from home, teach a craft, or help children prepare a traditional recipe from their culture. Oftentimes, an au pair’s unique perspective and experiences can make even ordinary activities feel new and exciting—so it’s easier for kids to stay away from screens, no matter the weather.
Learn how hosting an au pair with Au Pair in America® can help your family enjoy more meaningful moments together—rain or shine.
Although rainy days tend to keep children indoors, they don’t have to lead to boredom or endless screen time. With a little creativity and an open mind, a day spent inside can become an opportunity to learn something new or simply enjoy time together as a family.
If your family could use extra childcare support to keep children engaged when rainy days, schedule changes, and unexpected indoor afternoons arise, consider hosting an au pair with Au Pair in America®. Discover how flexible, live-in childcare and cultural exchange can bring a little extra light into your home on even the darkest and gloomiest days.
