When I was a child, rainy days could really dampen playtime for my friends and I because we aren’t allowed to go outside. Playing indoors is boring. But since kids today enjoy a lot of gadgets at home, they probably won’t notice anything different.

However, it’s not a good idea to let children be playing with video games all the time. Sometimes you have to also initiate other activities. On rainy days, it can be challenging but here are some ideas to make playing indoors fun, and without the use of any portable technology.

1. Baking

Parents don’t usually allow kids to be in the kitchen because they may hurt themselves. But with an adult’s help, you can spend the day baking cookie doughs or going for the more ambitious like baking pasta or fish meals. Kids enjoy measuring and doing something with their hands, such as kneading. And I’m sure they will love it more if they see the fruits of their labor — and realize that it tastes really good.

2. Arts and Crafts

Don’t do the usual coloring, cutting and pasting as children do these a lot in school and may now feel like a chore, instead of a fun thing to do. Be creative. This is playtime, so have fun with your ideas. I’m thinking shaving creams mixed with tubed watercolors can be fun. They don’t have to create masterpieces. The idea is to have something that will keep them busy and entertained.

3. Have A Game Of Cards

This one always works with my kids and their game of choice is Go Fish! We make it interesting by placing bets. And we use pebbles for our bets. The more pebbles earned at the end of the game, and the winner gets a prize from Mom or Dad.

This idea works for everyone, because it really doesn’t have anything to do with Easter.  And even if you don’t celebrate Easter, or you’ll celebrate it this coming Sunday instead of yesterday, the ingredients for this activity are cheap and will soon be cheaper, as egg-coloring kits go on clearance all over. 

Kids love to color and decorate eggs.  They make intricate designs with that white wax crayon, then wait patiently while holding an egg half in one color, only to turn it and hold it patiently half in another color.  And if your house is anything like ours, your kids like to color hard-boiled eggs much more than they like to eat them. 

But seeing how cheap eggs, vinegar, and dyeing kits are, why not stock upon these supplies and color some eggs at other times of the year, too?  For example, if you only use the red and blue tablets, you can have red, white and blue eggs for Independence Day.  Then if, kids don’t eat them, you can make egg salad or deviled eggs from them for that family picnic. 

How about orange and green colored eggs for Halloween?  Brown and yellow for Thanksgiving?  Red and green for Christmas?  Purple and pink for Valentine’s?  Purple and green for Mardi Gras?  Even if they don’t eat them all, you still haven’t spent very much money, and they get potentially hours of enjoyment decorating them. 

So, the next time you’re at the store, pick up a few of those egg coloring kits on clearance.  Pull them out in the middle of summer for some special occasion, or for now reason at all.  It will give your kids a creative, inexpensive activity, and bring a little more color into everyone’s life.

You wouldn’t know it by the weather where I am, but it is officially Spring.  Several religious traditions have important holidays around this time–a couple of them this very week.   One of my favorite sites for holiday crafts and activities is Kaboose–you might remember that I linked to their MLK day activities a while back. 

If you want to do some Passover-based crafts, Kaboose has them, and so do a few other sites.  Here are some to try:

• This is the basic Passover page.
• Here are some kid-friendly Passover recipes.
• These are Passover coloring pages.

Then some Holy Week/Easter activities can be found at these locations:

• This is Kaboose’s Easter page.
• This page has Easter puzzles, contests, and games.
• Here’s a huge list of kids’ books for Easter.

And don’t forget Earth Day, on April 22!

• Kaboose’s Earth Day page.
• This is Planetpals, with a huge range of activities.
• Here are some Earth Day crafts.

We missed listing this on March 21, but the Spring Equinox is the Wiccan festival of Ostara, which also offers fun things to do with kids:

• This is a traditional Ostara story, and here is a contemporary story.
• Here are some nature activities.
• And here are some Ostara crafts you can do.

Spring provides so many opportunities to do things with our kids and to learn together.  I hope you find the above ideas helpful.