Save Fun Activities For Rainy Day

Rainy days might be good for your lawn, but they typically lead to children whining, "I'm bored," especially if you limit your family's television, game and Internet time.

Before you throw your hands in the air and give up on your video game limits, find out about some fun activities that you can do with your children in the house. You may even stir up a bit of creativity.

Creative Kidstuff offers a great variety of rainy day activities that you can keep tucked away until you really need them. The company took the time to ask their creative employees for their suggestions for rainy day activities. Some of these fun ideas can get your kids out of your hair for an entire afternoon, and others will allow you and your kids to spend a little quality time together.

• Round up every stuffed animal in your house for a teddy bear picnic. Lay out blankets, decorate paper plates, and cut your sandwiches into fun shapes any bear would love. Consider trying fish, honey jars, berries or flowers.
• Write secret messages to each other using cotton swabs and lemon juice. Hold them over a warm light bulb and your secrets will be revealed.
• Make a fort for reading, listening to music (or a book on CD), even a nap. A kitchen table works well, same with a bunk bed or two couches that are somewhat close together. Make a fort into a relaxing experience for you and your child, consider introducing them to meditation. Once they get comfortable, prompt your child to relax each part of their body from toe to forehead.
• "Get your kids involved in the kitchen and make some fun dough:
  4 cups flour
  1 cup salt
  4 cups water
  4 tablespoon oil
  ½ cup cream of tartar
  Add food coloring or a package of unsweetened drink mix to give it color.
  Mix all ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook and stir over low/medium head until dough is completely formed and no longer sticky. Allow to cool before storing in an airtight container or zip-sealing bag.
• Make shoebox marble art. Gather marbles, washable paints, bowls, a shoebox and paper that's cut to line the bottom of the box. Drop marbles into one color of paint (in a bowl). Place them into the shoebox. Roll them around the box to create beautiful art. Remove marbles from the box and roll them in another color, repeat. When you are finished, remove the paper from the bottom of the box and start on a new piece. These artistic masterpieces can be used for invitations, thank-you notes, refrigerator art or you could place them into inexpensive frames and hang them in your child's room.
• Invite some friends over for an indoor carnival. Create a fish pond with a stick, string and clothes pin. Have participants cast their line over a sheet, which you are hiding behind. Clip their prizes onto the clothes pin. Consider inexpensive prizes such as stickers, novelty pencils, fruit snacks or kid-focused puzzles.
  You can also race friction cars through shaving cream, play musical chairs, have a cupcake walk and more.
• Spend the day creating a restaurant. You can fill hours setting up the table, creating the menu, waiter outfit and food. A notepad does the trick for taking orders and most any apron with a few pens will suffice for any waiter or waitress. When dinner time arrives, the grown ups can sit down and be customers as the kids run the show.
• Create a story or play. Send the kids on a scavenger hunt to gather objects from around the house to be used as story ideas. Put them on the floor in front of you and try to use every prop or object in a story that you and your children create. You could also have them gather everything and craft their own story, to be presented to you when the story is ready. This works great if you are working from home and need some time to get things done.
• Start a new tradition with a Mystery Trip. When you have some time and the kids are bored, go for a change of scenery. Yell "Mystery Trip" and load the kids into the car. Take the kids to a bird sanctuary, the zoo, free day at the museum, an indoor water park, a library-sponsored activity or a play. Make sure to end each mystery day with ice cream.
• Put on swimsuits, hop in the tub and paint. Consider shaving cream, washable finger paints or even pudding. If one of the kids creates something they don't want to rinse away, press paper on top and peel it away to save the print.
• Make paper mache globes.
  1. Gather round balloons, newspaper, flour, water, paint, black markers, a world map and an old shower curtain or tarp on which to work.
  2. Make glue by combining 1 cup each water and flour.
  3. Stir in 4 cups boiling water and simmer to create a runny paste. Allow time to cool.
  4. Tear newspaper into 1-inch wide strips and drag through paste, wiping off excess.
  5. Apply paper strips to balloon, covering the entire balloon three strips. Allow balloon to dry between layers.
  6. Use black marker to draw equator, continents, North Pole and South Pole.
  7. Paint continents and bodies of water
• Cover the floor with a tarp or old shower curtain. Use sand and a water table or big tub and bring out bubbles and let kids do the dishes. Measuring cups, plastic food containers and strainers are all great tools for this activity.
• Create clothes pin and coffee filter butterflies. Using watery watercolor paints, drop color spots onto coffee filters, one color at a time until the filter is a bright and colorful wing. Let dry. Clip the pin across the middle, and you've got a beautiful homemade butterfly that won't fly away.
• Melt a surprise. Fill plastic bowls or ice cube trays with water and add plastic animals or other small toys. Place bowls or trays into freezer and save for a later date, when you can melt the surprise in the tub or in a sand and water table. Try freezing the letters of your child's name into ice and see if they can spell with the letters as they melt.
• Collage crafts can be the best part of a rainy day. Keep a large storage tub and add things from time to time so you are ready when you need them. Tissue paper, buttons, pipe cleaners, glitter, paper scraps, old magazines, birthday and greeting cards and broken crayons can be tossed into the tub. Tape a large banner of paper on the wall. Decide on a theme and create art -- a giant rainbow, a forest or a message for someone who needs a boost.

If you want even more ideas, here's a great site that will get your creative juices flowing, so you can gather everything for a rainy day activity in one quick move.

With a little planning and some not-so-nice weather, you can spend a fun-filled day with your kids without having to rely on the television for entertainment.