Rainy Day Activities

Being born and raised in the Sunshine State, I have very little appreciation for endless gloomy, rainy days. Every once in awhile it is nice but after awhile, it gets old.

On top of that, I have a toddler with the activity level of a Mexican jumping bean and between the two of us, we get a little stir crazy so I've been trying to think of some fun indoor activities for us during these seemingly endless gloomy days. Here are a few ideas I've come up with:

1. Good old-fashioned coloring book coloring

2. Coloring printables - find your kids' favorite characters and print them out for free at www.noggin.com or www.nickjr.com. They also have lots of fun craft ideas. We now have a Dora Thanksgiving placemat colored oh-so-prettily in blue. You can also find other printables at www.crayola.com.

3. Online games at www.noggin.com, www.nickjr.com, and www.disney.com.

4. Finger painting, watercolor painting, or better yet - Color Wonder painting

5. Arts & crafts projects - this can be as simple as sticking stickers on a piece of paper to something more elaborate for older kids. You can draw a scene of something and have the kid put stickers/decorations/color in areas you specify for them (ie, put a sticker of a flower OUTSIDE of the house). Color the dog's ears brown. etc. etc. For kids who know their numbers or letters, you can do color by number.

6. Thanksgiving craft idea - Tom the Turkey - trace your child's hand on construction paper, have them help you cut it out, then decorate with feathers or other scraps of colorful construction paper

7. Read some books together.

8. Cut out pictures from old magazines and make a collage of your child's favorite things. Then send to Grandma for an early Christmas gift (bonus: saves time and money at the store!)

9. Bake cookies or cupcakes together - be sure to check out the book Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann & Elizabeth Kann beforehand so the kids will be forewarned not to eat too many cupcakes ;)

10. Build a fort.

11. Hide and seek

12. Scavenger hunt

13. Build an indoor obstacle course.

14. Turn up the music and DANCE!

15. Help Mommy fold the laundry. Oops, how did that one get in there? Well it's a good chance to catch up on that too ;)

16. If all else fails, grab your favorite animated movie (ie, the one that annoys you the least), a bowl of popcorn, and curl up on the couch and have a quiet afternoon snuggling together.