rainy day ideas #3

more indoor fun for your rainy days!

1. make your own obstacle course~ who wouldn't want to take the cushions off the couch, drape a couple blankets over some chairs, and make a home-made obstacle course? it can be confined to the living room or a bedroom, or it can even lead from room to room down hallways and up and down stiars. it's also a great way to work on spacial vocabulary such as over, under, around, and through. the only catch is that there's some clean-up involved afterward :).

2. categorizing~ this isn't something that will thrill an older child, but it'll be a hoot for the littles. my 5 year-old is still enjoying this concept. anything can be categorized and in various different ways. colors, shapes, sizes, similarities, what letter does it start with, does it rhyme, you get the idea. grab some colored beads of various sizes or a deck of cards. or be extra productive and have your child put clean utensils in the proper kitchen drawers or sort socks while you're folding laundry.

3. word games~ play 'i spy' or '20 questions.' make up animal riddles like 'what animal can swim in the water and say quack quack?' or 'the wool from your sweater comes from this animal.' this is such simple stuff, but the more i play these games with my daughter the more often she wants to. she's even wanting to make up her own riddles for me to figure out!

4. magnet fishing~ sprinkle some safety pins or paper clips on the floor. tie a refridgerator magnet to some string or yarn and let your child go fishing!



5. good old-fashioned indoor picnic~ spread out a blanket, order some pizza or make some delicious pb & j sandwiches, pop in a family movie, and let that rain outside (or snow) do its thing. and for extra outdoor-fun indoors, set up a tent in the living room or build a fort with a blanket and have an indoor campout.

check out our previous rainy day ideas here and here.

what if... ?

here's a fun game to play with your kids at the dinner table, on a roadtrip, or when you're just plain bored:

(rachel's answers included. warning: silliness abounds.)

1. what if you woke up and your hair was blue? (i'll flip over and take my hair off!)

2. what if you were locked in a candy store? (a bad robot ladybug toy will come after us!)

3. what if you woke up and there was an elephant on the lawn? (i'll flip him over and turn him into a hippopotamus!)

4. what if one of the beans we planted in our garden grew all the way up into the clouds? (some of the plant will fall onto the clouds and turn them pink.)

5. what if your friend was crying? (i sing a song to them, make them happy, and hug and kiss them.)

6. what if you found a lost puppy? (i would bring it back home to the candy store because a shopper there is sad because she lost her puppy.)

7. what if you went to the zoo and you became separated from your parents? (mommy and daddy would ride on an elephant to find me!)

8. what if someone walked into the house with muddy shoes? (i would clean it up, have tea with them, and then put them to bed.)

9. what if there were thunder and lightning and you were riding home on your bike? (i would get soaking wet and go to bed on the road.)

10. what if a space ship landed in the backyard? (i would go on the spaceship with my princess puppy.)

11. what if you won a million dollars? (you would take my picture and i'd go home with a jar on my back!)

12. what if the phone rang and your mother was outside? (you would stay outside and not pick up the telephone because maybe it's a bad guy or something.)

13. what if you saw your baby brother playing with a bottle of medicine? (i would take it away from him, put him to bed, and give him a toy medicine bottle instead.)

14. what if the lamp you were standing next to in the store fell off the table and shattered into a hundred pieces? (i would glue it back on and put it back on the table.)



what silly 'what if's' can you come up with? :)