10 Fun Indoor Activities for a Rainy Day

It’s raining, the kids are stuck inside and you’ve heard them say they’re bored 57 times! Save your sanity with our round up of 10 fun and simple games that are sure to cure cabin fever:

Freeze!

Choose some of your kids’ favourite tunes and turn up the volume! Ask them to dance until the music stops. When it does they have to freeze in whatever position they find themselves in. To keep things a little more challenging, ask them to freeze in specific poses: animals, shapes, letters or even yoga postures.

Hopscotch

Get the kids to burn some energy with indoor hopscotch! Use the tiles in your kitchen, living or hall as your game space and some electrical tape to put numbers on the floor.

Obstacle Course

Have some fun while helping develop your child’s coordination, control and balance. Use furniture and household items to build an obstacle course throughout the house. The possibilities are endless, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Line up dining room chairs to make a tunnel to crawl through
• Roll up some towels and make a long ‘balance beam’
• Set out a laundry basket and use balled up socks to practice throwing and accuracy
• Tie a cord between two chairs for the kids to slide beneath, commando-style

Paper Bag Skit

This game is ideal for older kids and is a sleepover favourite. Divide everyone into groups and give them a bag filled with unrelated props such as a spoon, bicycle helmet, sunglasses or ribbon. The groups then have 15 minutes to prepare a skit using all of the props. This game is so much fun it doesn’t have to be competitive – but if the kids want to, they can all vote on a winning skit.

Indoor Picnic

Get the dress ups out, spread a blanket on the floor (or use a rug) and share a picnic lunch together. Half the fun is making the food so let the kids plan the menu, make and pack the picnic basket.

Homemade Bowling Alley

Raid the contents of your recycling bin for 12 plastic bottles. Use a black marker to number them from 1 to 12 - this will be the point scored for each bottle when it is knocked down. Set up the bowling alley in the hallway then get the kids to take turns bowling a soft ball and knocking down the bottles.

Fashion Parade

Let the kids raid your wardrobe and put on a fashion show! Use a rug as the catwalk and see what poses your kids create.

Treasure Hunt

Simply write your clues on pieces of paper. Place the first clue somewhere easy to find and then leave as many clues as you like around the house, making a trail to the final prize.

Self Portraits

Set your child up in front of a mirror with pencils, textas and paint and encourage them to draw themselves. Or perhaps you might like to give them whiteboard markers so they can draw directly onto the mirror!

Pillow Fort

Challenge your kids to design and build their own pillow fort or cubby house. For a fun competition, see who can build the highest tower!