I don’t know about you but we are an outdoor family in the summer. We enjoy our blow up pool, walks to the playground, to get ice cream, and to the local food trucks on Friday night. I’m always thrown for a loop when a pop storm happens or a random rainy day so I keep some activities in my back pocket to keep this peace in our house.
- Save up new toys- I always grab toys on sale at Target or Walmart and then keep them in a bin in our garage. My son Whitman is Autistic and loves legos so I’ve been know to grab tiny lego sets wherever I see them on sale. My daughter Vivi is super into crafts so I have a paint your own tea set and make your own bag at the ready for her. It breaks up the day and it doesn’t cost a lot because the items were on sale and you didn’t have to go get them. Win Win all around.
- Book Activity- We are big readers in this house. With Whitman learning to read at school we have popcorn vocab words around everywhere. I’m a big theme person. I love to do books with a theme. My friend Amanda suggested for one this summer, since we are working on different food textures with Whit, was “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish By Dr. Seuss. You take a fish bowl and make blue Jell-O with Swedish fish in it. While reading the story the kids can enjoy their snack. We also have one for Fancy Nancy’s Sand Castle’s and Palaces By: Jane O’Connor. I have kinetic sand in a bin and Vivi can build sand castles while I read. And for Whit we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom By: Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault. I make a big palm tree and tape it to the wall. Then as I read I have Whitman add the letters he loves to knock them down and put bandaids on them.
- Drive in movie- We love a good movie in our house and on rainy days it’s always fun to have a movie day. I take Amazon boxes that we aren’t using and do either wrapping paper we will most likely never use again or if I’m feeling ambitious I let the kids paint their boxes. Then glue black paper plates on for the wheels, yellow paper plates for the lights, add a pillow as a seat and you have a car for your drive in movie. We do printable tickets and turn our daughter’s food truck into the snack shack where she can make snacks for everyone. We make it extra special by getting our favorite pizza and eating in the family room while watching the movie.
- Water Fights In The Rain- Whitman can be hyper focused on wanting something. A lot of times weather doesn’t matter with the activity he wants to do. So If being outside in the rain is the way we are leaning then we fill up water guns, use the just add hose water balloons, and get muddy. It’s a fun break on the multiple rain days we’ve had recently. If you’re going to get wet you might as well have fun doing it.
- Indoor Campout- We clear out our family room, get the sleeping bags out, and have an indoor camp out complete with flash lights, s’mores, and a fun story or two. We either use the big tent my husband likes to take camping or we use the kids little tents that are in their rooms. It’s so fun to unplug and just hang out in the dark in our tents.
Closing out I want to preface and say I am by no means a Pinterest mom. 85% of these activities don’t end in the happiness that you’d imagine but it’s fun to try new things to break up the day, especially on gloomy rainy days. Feel free to do your own thing and put your own spin on it. I’m sure your kids will love it. You’re doing an amazing job mama.
