Read on to find some of our best rainy day activities for toddlers!
When you’re stuck indoors because it’s rainy, cloudy or freezing, the days can feel super long. Especially if you have an energetic toddler to entertain!
The four walls can seem like they’re closing in on you! Because of that, you end up wondering how you can fill the hours and make it through the day with your sanity intact!
We’ve put together some fab rainy day activities for toddlers to get you through.
Many are super quick and easy to set up. And little ones will love them.
Looking for fun activities with your baby or toddler?
There are thousands of classes and groups on Happity. Find one you’ll love here.
Activities to do with toddlers on a cold or rainy day
1. Washing up glove finger puppets
Make finger puppets in minutes with this toddler-friendly activity. Simply snip the fingers off a pair of washing up gloves and use pens to make faces (Sharpies work best but supervise toddlers well if you use these!). You could glue googly eyes and wool hair to make your puppets.
2. Painting with cars
For a quick and easy painting session with an exciting twist why not paint with toy cars? Your toddler can ‘drive’ cars through blobs of paint and then explore all the colourful tracks they make on the paper.
3. Play dough works of art
Have you ever made ‘paintings’ with play dough? They’re so much fun to do. Start with simple shapes and let your toddler enjoy squishing and squeezing down the dough so that it sticks to the paper.
4. Rainy day activities for toddlers – Make a sensory play tray
You can do this quickly and easily by pouring dry pasta, rice, sand or flour into a tray and adding spoons, scoops, bowls and funnels. We have loads of fab ideas for sensory play trays here.
5. Car (or dolly) wash
Set up a bowl of warm soapy water and a bowl of clean warm water. Gather lots of towels. And then let your toddler enjoy washing their toy cars or dolls. You could also make toy cars muddy first by driving them through the soil in the garden for added fun
6. Two ingredient cloud dough
This cloud dough is super quick and easy to make – using only 2 ingredients! Just mix roughly equal amounts of hair conditioner and cornflour until you have a soft dough.
It is so lovely to play with! Add some play dough cookie cutters and tools for added fun.
7. Sock puppets
Put all those odd socks to good use! Glue on buttons, googly eyes and wool to transform an old sock into a fab hand puppet. Once you’ve made that, we know that your toddler is bound to have lots of giggles with it.
8. Rainy day activities for toddlers -Make an indoor den
Drape a blanket over two chairs to make a simple den. Fill with cushions, toys, books and little activities for some magical den time fun. Then you’re sure to have created a space that your toddlers will adore!
9. Take a trip to the library
It’s the perfect activity for a cold or rainy day. Wrap up warm and then head to your local library. Loads of libraries have arts and crafts or colouring activities on hand for toddlers to do too – some even have storytelling sessions.
Have a quick search on Happity to help find some great library-based toddler groups!
10. Cress Heads
A classic that never loses its appeal for little ones. Clean and draw faces on eggshells and then show your toddler how to plant and grow cress. They’ll love checking their little egg heads every few days to see when they start to grow ‘hair’. These lovely Cress Heads were made by Emma for her amazing guest blog filled with amazing activities for toddlers.
11. Let’s go shopping! – Rainy day activities for toddlers
Set up a play shop with your toddler. Will it be a food shop or a shoe shop? Maybe even an ice cream shop with cones filled with play dough? Gather all the items for sale and pop on a shelf or table. Add a play till and a basket and your toddler will spend a happy time playing shops.
12. Shaving foam painting fun
Squeeze out some shaving foam into a tray and add either food colouring or paint. Then let your toddler swirl the colours around with a paintbrush or marble them with a cocktail stick
13. Mini Masterchefs
Get the pinnies out and enjoy a baking session together. There are loads of toddler-friendly recipe ideas out there. We love this one for strawberry and coconut flapjacks.
14. Leaf printing
Collect some leaves and have great fun painting them and then printing with them onto a sheet of paper. In spring/summer you could put out a selection of green paints. In autumn use browns, oranges and yellows.
15. Peg paintbrushes – Rainy day activities for toddlers
Use pegs to make fab paintbrushes that little ones will love. Use a peg to make paintbrushes with leaves, twigs, sponges and even tufts of wool. Your toddler will enjoy painting with their alternative brushes to see the marks they’ll make!
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