Rainy weekends are something every UK family eventually has to deal with. You might have planned a trip to the park, a family walk or an entire day outdoors, only to open the curtains and discover relentless rain.
Rainy weekends are something every UK family eventually has to deal with.
You might have planned a trip to the park, a family walk or an entire day outdoors, only to open the curtains and discover relentless rain.
That doesn't mean the weekend has to be spent watching television.
There are plenty of ways to keep children entertained indoors without spending a fortune or transforming your home into a professional activity centre. In fact, some of the best rainy-day activities require little more than things you probably already have around the house.
From den building and treasure hunts to baking, science experiments and family competitions, here are 25 indoor activities to try the next time the British weather changes your plans.
1. Build an Indoor Den
Den building is one of the classics because it works with so many different ages.
Use chairs, blankets, cushions and sheets to create a hideout in the living room or bedroom.
Once it's finished, the den can become almost anything.
A castle.
A campsite.
A spaceship.
A secret headquarters.
A reading cave.
Give children a torch, some books and a few snacks and they may stay inside considerably longer than expected.
Just make sure the structure is stable and isn't blocking anything important.
2. Create an Indoor Treasure Hunt
Hide something somewhere around the house and create a series of clues leading towards it.
Younger children can follow pictures or simple directions.
Older children can solve riddles.
The treasure doesn't need to be expensive.
It could be a small treat, a family film choice or even the announcement that everyone is having pancakes.
Once children have completed your treasure hunt, reverse the roles and let them create one for you.
3. Make an Indoor Obstacle Course
Children with lots of energy aren't always impressed by suggestions involving colouring books.
Give them something physical instead.
Create a safe obstacle course using cushions, chairs, tape lines and other suitable household items.
They might:
crawl under a table
walk along a taped line
jump between cushions
throw a soft ball into a basket
balance on one leg
complete five star jumps.
Time each attempt and see whether they can improve.
Keep the course appropriate for the available space and avoid furniture or objects that could cause injury.
4. Have a Family Bake-Off
Choose something relatively simple to bake together.
Biscuits.
Cupcakes.
Brownies.
Flapjacks.
Bread.
Older children can read the recipe, measure ingredients and take more responsibility.
Younger children can pour, mix and decorate.
If you have several children, give everyone their own decorating area and create a family competition.
The best part is that when the activity finishes, you have something to eat.
5. Make Homemade Pizza
Cooking dinner can become the afternoon's entertainment.
Prepare or buy pizza bases and let everyone design their own pizza.
Set out a selection of toppings and allow children to experiment.
They can create faces, patterns or different sections.
Older children can help prepare ingredients with appropriate supervision.
Younger children usually enjoy adding toppings even if most of them end up concentrated in the middle.
6. Create a Family Cinema
Don't simply put a film on.
Turn the living room into a cinema.
Children can design tickets and posters.
Create a snack counter.
Arrange numbered seats.
Close the curtains.
Make popcorn.
One child can check tickets at the entrance.
Another can introduce the film.
The preparation transforms an ordinary movie afternoon into an activity.
You could even schedule an interval.
7. Have a Board Game Tournament
Rainy weekends are perfect for bringing out board games.
Instead of playing one game, create a tournament.
Choose several games and award points for each result.
You could include card games, quick children's games and longer strategy games depending on everyone's ages.
Create a scoreboard and continue the tournament throughout the weekend.
Try pairing adults with younger children so everyone can participate.
8. Design Your Own Board Game
Once children are bored with existing games, ask them to invent one.
They need to decide:
What is the objective?
How do players move?
What are the rules?
How do you win?
Children can create the board from cardboard or paper, make playing pieces and design challenge cards.
The finished game doesn't need to make perfect sense.
Creating it is the main activity.
9. Have a LEGO Building Challenge
Give children a specific building challenge rather than simply telling them to play with their bricks.
For example:
Build the tallest tower.
Create a bridge.
Design a theme park.
Build a vehicle for exploring Mars.
Create your dream house.
Build a zoo.
Older children can be given time limits or specific restrictions.
For example, build a bridge that can hold a particular object without collapsing.
10. Make Something from Cardboard Boxes
Before recycling delivery boxes, give them to the children.
Large boxes can become houses, cars, boats, robots or castles.
Smaller boxes can become garages, shops or doll furniture.
Add pencils, crayons, paper, tape and other child-safe craft materials.
Cardboard is one of the cheapest children's construction materials available.
The bigger the box, the more possibilities it seems to have.
11. Put on a Family Talent Show
Everyone needs an act.
Singing.
Dancing.
Jokes.
Magic tricks.
Football skills with a soft ball.
Instrument playing.
Drawing.
Create a stage area and let children make tickets and posters.
Parents should perform too.
A lack of actual talent should not be considered a reason for avoiding participation.
In many families, the terrible adult performances become the highlight.
12. Put on a Play
Choose a familiar story or invent one.
Assign characters.
Create costumes from clothes already in the house.
Make simple scenery.
Practise.
Then perform the finished production.
Children who don't want to act can be directors, costume designers, ticket sellers or responsible for sound effects.
If children enjoy making videos, you could record the performance and watch it afterwards.
13. Create a Family Quiz
Everyone contributes questions.
Possible categories include:
animals
films
sport
geography
music
science
family trivia.
Split into teams.
Older children can become quizmasters.
Younger children can have easier questions.
Add a picture round or music round if you want to make the quiz longer.
14. Try Simple Science Experiments
Turn the kitchen into a temporary science laboratory.
There are plenty of simple experiments using ordinary household materials.
Explore floating and sinking.
Experiment with magnets.
Mix colours.
Build paper structures.
Investigate which materials absorb water.
Make paper aeroplanes and test different designs.
Choose activities appropriate for children's ages and supervise them properly.
The best science activities encourage children to predict what will happen before trying the experiment.
15. Make Paper Aeroplanes
Give everyone several sheets of paper and build different aeroplane designs.
Then organise competitions.
Which flies furthest?
Which stays airborne longest?
Which lands closest to a target?
Which looks best?
Older children can experiment with wing shapes and folds to see whether they can improve performance.
You can easily turn a ten-minute craft activity into an hour of design and testing.
16. Have an Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Create a list of objects children need to find around the house.
Something beginning with B.
Something blue.
Something smaller than your hand.
Something soft.
Something made from wood.
Something that makes a noise.
Something older than you.
Set a time limit.
For older children, make the clues more difficult.
You can also create a photography version where they photograph each item instead of bringing everything into the living room.
17. Create a Home Restaurant
Let children transform the dining room into a restaurant.
They need a name.
A menu.
A sign.
Table settings.
One child can be the waiter.
Another can help prepare food.
Parents become customers.
Keep the meal simple.
Sandwiches, homemade pizza, pancakes or another easy family favourite works perfectly.
At the end, leave the restaurant an extremely positive imaginary review.
18. Make a Stop-Motion Movie
Children who enjoy technology can use it creatively.
Use LEGO figures, toy animals or other suitable toys to create a stop-motion film.
Move the characters a tiny amount.
Take a photograph.
Move them again.
Take another photograph.
Continue until you have enough images to create a short animation using suitable software or an app.
The finished film might only last 30 seconds.
Creating it could take two hours.
For a rainy afternoon, that's an excellent exchange rate.
19. Create a Family Newspaper
Turn children into reporters.
The newspaper could include:
family news
weather
sport
interviews
jokes
cartoons
advertisements
photographs.
Children can interview family members.
“What is Dad's favourite food?”
“What was Mum's favourite subject at school?”
“What does Grandma think about today's weather?”
Give the newspaper a name and create a front page.
You could make a new edition every school holiday.
20. Have an Indoor Disco
Move some furniture where safe, put on favourite music and create a family disco.
Children can make invitations and decorations beforehand.
Try games such as musical statues or freeze dancing.
Let everyone choose songs.
For older children, create a playlist together.
A rainy Saturday afternoon can suddenly become considerably more energetic.
21. Create an Indoor Mini Olympics
Children who need physical activity may enjoy a family competition.
Choose events suitable for your home.
Sock basketball.
Standing long jump.
Balance challenge.
Paper aeroplane distance.
Target throwing using soft objects.
How many star jumps can you do in 30 seconds?
Keep score.
Children can create medals from cardboard or paper.
Safety matters more than breaking the family indoor long-jump record, so choose activities that suit your available space.
22. Start a Big Art Project
Instead of producing another small drawing, create something enormous.
Tape several sheets of paper together.
Children could design:
a city
a zoo
a theme park
an island
a fantasy world
a giant map.
Everyone can work on a different area.
The project can remain available throughout the weekend so children can keep adding details.
You might eventually have roads, houses, characters and entire stories developing across the picture.
23. Have a Reading Challenge
Rainy weather and books work extremely well together.
Create a comfortable reading area with cushions, blankets and perhaps the den you've already built.
Let children choose their own books.
For younger children, read together.
For older children, set a family reading challenge.
Everyone reads for 30 minutes and then explains something about what they read.
Graphic novels and comics count too.
The objective is to make reading enjoyable, not turn the weekend into another school lesson.
24. Create a Boredom Jar
This activity solves future rainy-day problems as well.
Ask everyone to write activity ideas on pieces of paper.
Fold them and place them inside a jar or box.
Ideas might include:
build a den
bake biscuits
play a board game
draw a comic
make a treasure hunt
build something from LEGO
watch a family film
create a quiz
make paper aeroplanes
have a dance competition.
Whenever someone announces, “I'm bored”, they choose an activity.
You can add new ideas throughout the year.
25. Let the Kids Plan the Day
Older children can take responsibility for organising part of the rainy weekend.
Give them some rules.
For example, the activities need to happen indoors, the budget is £20 and everyone in the family needs to be able to participate.
Then let them create the plan.
Perhaps they'll choose swimming followed by lunch.
Maybe they'll organise a film afternoon.
They might decide everyone should bake something.
The planning itself becomes part of the activity and gives children some ownership over the weekend.
Indoor Activities for Toddlers
Toddlers generally don't need complicated entertainment.
Keep activities short and flexible.
Den building, simple baking, dancing, cardboard boxes, indoor treasure hunts and basic obstacle courses can all work well.
Sensory play may also be enjoyable when it's age appropriate and properly supervised.
Remember that toddlers may spend 45 minutes playing with the cardboard box and three minutes using the expensive activity you bought.
This is perfectly normal.
Indoor Activities for Older Children
Primary-school children can usually handle activities involving more planning.
Board-game tournaments, LEGO challenges, baking, quizzes, stop-motion films and science experiments can work particularly well.
Give them responsibility.
Instead of organising everything yourself, ask them to design the challenge or create the rules.
Children often stay interested longer when they've helped create the activity.
Indoor Activities for Teenagers
Teenagers may be less impressed when you announce that everyone is making a cardboard castle.
Give them more control.
They might enjoy:
cooking
baking
photography
film-making
gaming tournaments
complex board games
escape-room-style puzzles
fitness challenges
creating music
planning a family film night.
You can also let teenagers organise an activity for younger siblings.
They may complain about the idea initially and then become surprisingly competitive.
When Everyone Has Too Much Energy
Sometimes the problem isn't boredom.
It's energy.
After several hours inside, children may desperately need physical activity.
Choose activities involving movement.
Indoor obstacle courses.
Dancing.
Mini Olympics.
Fitness challenges.
Musical statues.
If you have space, balloon volleyball can also work well because balloons move slowly and are less likely than balls to damage something.
Clear fragile objects first.
Your favourite lamp shouldn't become an unwilling participant.
When Everyone Needs to Calm Down
At other times, children need the opposite.
Choose quieter activities.
Reading.
Drawing.
Audiobooks.
Puzzles.
LEGO.
Colouring.
A family film.
Simple crafts.
A rainy afternoon doesn't need to become a continuous programme of organised entertainment.
Children can have quiet time too.
You Don't Have to Stay at Home
Indoor activities don't necessarily mean home activities.
If everyone desperately needs a change of scenery, consider an indoor family day out.
Depending on what's available nearby, you could visit:
a museum
science centre
aquarium
indoor swimming pool
library
indoor climbing centre
trampoline park
soft-play centre
indoor adventure park
cinema.
These options cost more than building a den, but they can rescue an especially wet weekend when everyone has been inside for too long.
Create a Rainy-Day Box
One of the easiest ways to prepare for future wet weekends is to create a rainy-day activity box.
Keep it somewhere children can't access constantly.
Inside you might put:
colouring books
pencils
stickers
craft materials
playing cards
puzzles
simple science activities
small LEGO challenges
activity books.
Because children don't see these items every day, opening the box feels more interesting.
Rotate the contents occasionally.
Don't Feel You Have to Entertain Children Every Minute
A rainy weekend doesn't need to become a 48-hour children's entertainment programme.
Parents are allowed to sit down.
Children can be bored occasionally.
In fact, boredom can encourage them to invent their own games rather than waiting for adults to organise everything.
Provide some possibilities.
Make craft materials accessible.
Put games where children can reach them.
Give them a few suggestions.
Then let them decide what happens.
You may discover that the activity they invent themselves lasts much longer than anything you could have planned.
Rain Doesn't Have to Ruin the Weekend
Living in the UK means rain will occasionally change your plans.
Probably quite often.
But a wet weekend doesn't automatically mean two days of children staring at screens and adults waiting for Monday.
Build something.
Bake something.
Create something.
Compete against each other.
Turn the living room into a cinema.
Build a den.
Make a ridiculous family newspaper.
And if you've tried everything on this list and the children still insist they're bored?
Put on the wellies and waterproofs.
There's always puddle jumping.