It’s raining. It’s pouring. But don’t worry, your children will not be snoring! To help keep your children busy on days when they’re stuck inside, we’ve compiled a list of fun, engaging activities while the weather rages outside.
1. Bake: Treat your children to some sweet, homemade snacks inside. Help them practice their reading and math skills by reading or measuring the ingredients or by doubling or halving the recipe.
2. Have an indoor camping adventure: Build tents, make s’mores in the oven and take turns reading scary “campfire” stories to each other.
3. Conduct science experiments: Pretend you and your kids are mad scientists by conducting experiments indoors. One fun experiment to try is “Glow in the Dark Soda.” Using ¼ of a 20 oz. bottle of Mountain Dew, add an 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda and 3 capfuls of hydrogen peroxide. Shake the mixture well, turn off the lights and watch it glow!
4. Play school at home: When your children are home due to inclement weather or are on vacation, let them be the teacher while you act as one of their students. Be sure to provide them with books to read for story-time. For suggestions, check out the Kumon Recommended Reading List.
5. Scavenger Hunts: When it’s raining outside, try creating a scavenger hunt for your children. You could hide toys, games or ingredients for baking cookies around your house. Provide them with clues to search the entire house.
6. Host a Math-a-thon: Have your children play a series of math games and activities to help them practice their math skills. Once the games are completed, reward all participants with their favorite awards, snacks, and small treats.
7. Jump rope: If you have a lot of room, invite your children to jump rope if they use their math skills to count the number of jumps. As an extra challenge, ask your children to count by 2’s or 3’s. As an alternative, ask kids to spell vocabulary words instead of counting.
8. Have an indoor picnic: If your children can’t have a picnic in the park, let them have one in the living room instead. Ask your children to count out the number of cups, plates, utensils, napkins, etc. they will need for each of their guests. When you arrive at your picnic spot, have them unpack and count the total number of items in the picnic basket.
9. Play catch: Using a balloon or a soft object, toss the items around to your children. Count the number of times the object is catch. When someone drops the object, keep track of how many times the object was caught and play again to see if you can beat your highest score.
10. Egg Drop: The egg drop is a popular experiment for children of all ages. Help them to build a container that could keep an egg from breaking after being dropped from the stairs using household objects.
11. Food Count: Help your children practice math skills using egg cartons. Write numbers 1-12 (or 1-6 for ½ dozen egg cartons) on the sections of an egg carton and have your children count out each number using small items, like candy, coins, or buttons. Then ask them to fill the numbered sections with the correct number of items.
12. Waterfall Game: Another fun counting game to play with your children is the waterfall game. Fill a container with water so that it nearly reaches the top. Provide your children with a supply of coins and ask them to take turns dropping 1-3 coins into the container. Once the water overflows, the game is over. Count the number of coins in the container and divide them among the players.
13. Build-a-Word: Using Scrabble tiles (or write letters on pieces of paper), place the tiles in a container and have your children pull out letters until they can make a word. To increase the level of difficulty, require each word to contain specific a letters or have at least 4-5 letters.
14. Go Indoor Fishing: Help your children cut fish shapes out of construction paper. Write a number or a word on each fish and glue or tape metal paper clips to the back of each one. Tie a magnet and the one end of the string and tie the other end to a long stick. Then go fishing for words and numbers. When playing with numbers, ask your children to add the numbers written on each fish.
15. Picture a Story: Have your children create a story using pictures. Ask your children to create 2-3 pictures and have each child dictate a part of the story to go along with each picture. Once the story has been created, create a book for your family to read on the next rainy day.
