Five rainy day activities with a toddler

We’ve all been there. The chirpy little voice wakes you up bright and early, full of the joys of life and bounding with energy for the day ahead. Then you notice that 6am is not quite as bright as usual, so you take a look outside, and it’s pouring rain.

Groan. Not again. (This is Ireland after all!)

Cancel the plans for the playground. Instead, you have a whole day trapped in your house with your toddler to look forward to. I guess you could switch on CBeebies and let that wonderful channel do its magic. But let’s face it, there have to be more fun ways to keep your toddler – and you – entertained for a full rainy day. So here’s a list of five of my favourite rainy day activities with Little Man. If you have anything to add to the list, please let me know – Ireland certainly provides us with plenty of opportunities to try them out!

1. Arts and Crafts fun
This is the obvious one – whether it’s finger (or foot!) paints, crayons, or colouring pencils, all you need is a colouring book or some blank pages, for plenty of fun. Little Man loves to colour – he seems to prefer crayons to pencils. He recently discovered markers, but we quickly hid them again. Not a good idea for a toddler. Stickers are also a really good way to embellish your works of art. Although, he might be getting a little too good at sticker art – I keep finding them on the furniture around the house. If you don’t like mess, then the Tomy Aquadoodle is a good alternative to traditional paints.

2. Hide and Seek
1…2…3…4…5…Ready or not, here I come! Okay, so Little Man is invariably hiding behind the door or the curtain, but it’s just so much fun sneaking around the room, searching in the most ridiculous of locations. “Where’s Little Man? Is he in the box of blocks? Is he under the teddy? Oh! There he is!” And the squeals of laughter when he’s eventually found! Fantastic!

3. Pots and Pans Symphony
There is no sweeter music to a toddler’s ears than the sound pots and pans make when you hit them with a wooden spoon. If you want to build a little exercise into this activity, spread the pots out across the floor, and run from one to the other, banging each one as you pass it. I’ll be honest though – there’s only so much of this particular activity that I can take before I start to long for the sweet melodies from the Night Garden!

4. The Indoor Fort
We tend to save this one for a day when all three of us are in the house. And I have to issue a disclaimer with it – I can’t guarantee that if you do this, your suite of furniture will be in the same condition at the end of the day! But I think it’s worth it. We take all of the cushions off the couches, tip them on their sides and turn our whole sitting room into a fortress and adventure centre in one. If you have a couple of throws, they work great when draped over the side of the couch to turn your upended couch into a cave or a tent – or whatever else you’d like it to be. Expect some hyperactivity and a few bumps and bruises from this game though. Maybe it’s just in our house, but it can get a bit crazy. Especially when Little Man is trying to climb pillow mountain to escape from his father, the hungry bear!

5. Splish Splash
Sometimes you’ve just got to take advantage of the weather, put on the wet gear and the wellies, and get out there and splash in some puddles. There are only so many years in your life when you can get away with this particular activity – toddler years, and parent of toddler years! So get outside and enjoy it while you can!