5 Ways to Keep the Kids Busy on Rainy (or Hot) Days {Guest Post}

5 Ways to Keep the Kids Busy on Rainy (or Hot) Days

This summer we seem to be inside more because of extremely hot days we are experiencing here in the Midwest, rather than for rainy days. It is far to easy to let DVDs or Netflix rule, that’s why when enough TV is enough, we point the children to some of their favorite inside activities. Here are 5 ways to keep the kids busy on rainy or hot days, whatever weather you are experiencing in your area:

1. Paper and Crayons. This is a given in our house. Our children love to draw and go through oodles and oodles of paper, not to mention crayons, markers and colored pencils.

2. Coloring pages/Paper Dolls. Our children are rather old fashioned in their love of paper dolls. Even our boys play with paper dolls thanks to Dover Publications. Dover publishes soldier, Indian, knight and civil war paper dolls, especially with a boy’s interest in mind. Our children have taken paper dolls to a different level too. When they color, they create their own paper dolls by cutting out the images, people or characters and using them for paper dolls. It also saves us money from buying them new paper doll books since they always have a steady stream of new paper dolls via online coloring pages or copying our reusable coloring books.

3. Whiteboards and Whiteboard Markers. This is a favorite among our older and younger children. It’s fun to create, show and tell and then erase to do it all over again.

4. Blocks. Our blocks, Lincoln logs and people were put in storage bins at the beginning of summer so these are long lost toys that we can take out and allow the children to play with on hot or rainy days.

5. Building Forts. Our boys have been known to take apart their bunk bed to create new and improved forts. A wee bit scary talent of an 8 and 10. J The children will make their own individual homes or even a town and play in it all day long. The downfall is when they are asked to pick up because they never want to.

Rainy or hot days can be the end of mom’s sanity when everyone is cooped up inside all day long, but having a few activities set aside for those days can help create a quiet and peaceful atmosphere. The key is to be prepared with supplies or put a few special toys in storage for a few weeks so they are “new” when the need arises.

Have fun planning your next rainy or hot day activity and feel free to share your own ideas in the comment section.

Theresa has been married for 18 years and is mom to 8 beautiful children. She is also a WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom). In addition to blogging, she is a Virtual Assistant with her own company as well as an independent contractor with Your USA VA. Her interests include: reading, writing, travel, education, being an entrepreneur, being self-sufficient by growing her own food through farming and gardening. To learn more about her and her family visit her blog Faith and Family Reviews.