What to Do on a Rainy Day: 60 Ideas Sorted by Energy and Setup

Zero Setup, Start in Ten Seconds

For the moment when the complaining has already started and you need something now.

• Twenty questions, the classic, with no setup at all.
• The floor is lava. No equipment, immediate buy in, and it ends when everyone is tired.
• Hide and seek indoors, with the rule that hiding places must be in one half of the house.
• Would you rather, alternating who asks. Good in a car, good on a sofa.
• Charades, using categories everyone knows: films, animals, jobs.
• The story chain. One person says a sentence, the next continues it, and it must stay coherent.
• Simon says, a game built around listening for the instruction.
• Sock basketball. A rolled pair of socks and a laundry basket. Move the basket back a step each time someone scores.

Burning Off Energy Indoors

Rain does not remove the need to move. Harvard Health notes that "children should be active for an hour every day," and while the article makes the case for outdoor play specifically, it concedes the practical point: "they can certainly exercise indoors."

• An obstacle course down the hallway: crawl under a chair, step in every cushion, three jumps, back. Let the kids design it, which is half the activity.
• Balloon keepy uppy. One balloon, cannot touch the floor. Add a rule each round: only feet, only heads, alternate people.
• Dance freeze. Music on, music off, everyone stops. Whoever moves is out, or in the kinder version, becomes the person controlling the music.
• Animal races across the room: bear crawl, crab walk, frog jump. Surprisingly tiring for the adult who joins in.
• Indoor bowling with plastic bottles and any ball.
• A treasure hunt with written clues, each one leading to the next. Write the clues, then let the hunt carry the activity.

Things That Happen in the Kitchen

The kitchen earns its place on a rainy day because it produces something at the end.

• Bake something with steps a child can own. Cracking eggs, stirring, cutting shapes. The mess is the activity, not a side effect of it.
• Homemade pizza, where everyone builds their own.
• A blind taste test. Five things from the cupboard, blindfold, guess. Works with drinks, crisps, fruit.
• Decorate biscuits with icing and whatever sprinkles exist in the back of the cupboard.
• Make a hot drink properly, whisked chocolate rather than the instant kind, as a small ceremony.
• Cook one thing from a country nobody has cooked from before, chosen by pointing at a map or spinning a globe.

Making Things From What You Have

Everything here uses materials already in the house.

• A cardboard box becomes one thing only, decided by vote: a car, a shop, a rocket, a post box. The constraint is what makes it work.
• A blanket fort, with the rule that it must be big enough for everyone to fit inside at once.
• Paper aeroplanes, then a competition with three categories: distance, air time, and most unusual design that still flies.
• Draw the view from the window, rain included. Rain is a good subject: mostly diagonal lines.
• A comic strip of something that happened this week, six panels, everyone draws their own version of the same event.
• A shoebox diorama of a scene from a favourite book.
• Homemade playdough, flour, salt, water and oil.
• Write and record a two minute radio play, using a phone voice recorder and household objects for sound effects.

Quiet Things, for the Hour Before Bed

• Reading in a nest of every pillow in the house.
• Audiobook plus drawing. Try the combination when the group wants more movement.
• A jigsaw left out on a table, to be added to by anyone walking past over several days.
• Looking through old photographs and having whoever appears in them tell the story.
• Writing an actual letter to a grandparent or a cousin, on paper, to be posted.
• Learning ten words of a language nobody in the room speaks.
• Stargazing substitute: the constellation you would see tonight if the clouds were not there, drawn on paper.

Things Worth a Whole Afternoon

Save these for the day when the rain has clearly settled in.

• A film with a theme, chosen by a rule rather than argument: a film from the year a parent was born, a film nobody has seen, a film someone loved as a child.
• Board game tournament with a bracket drawn on paper and a trophy made of cardboard.
• Redecorate one small area. A shelf, a corner, a bedroom wall of pictures. Modest scope, visible result.
• Sort and cull. Toys, books, clothes. Turn it into a game by having each person choose five things to pass on, adults included.
• Learn one whole thing: a card trick, a paper crane, a song on any instrument in the house, juggling three balls.
• Make a family quiz where each person writes five questions about themselves and everyone else guesses.
• Build the biggest structure possible from one material only, whether that is cards, blocks or spaghetti and marshmallows.

If You Are on Your Own

Not every rainy day involves children.

• Cook something that takes three hours and fills the flat with smell
• The reorganisation you have been postponing, with a podcast on
• Write the message to the person you have been meaning to contact
• Take the thing that is broken and either fix it or throw it away
• Reread a book you loved at a different age
• Plan something for a month from now
• A long bath, an actual one, with the phone in another room

Going Out Anyway

Rain is not a barrier if everyone is dressed for it, and a wet walk has the advantage of making home feel better on return.

• Puddle jumping, which requires only the decision to allow it.
• A puddle photography walk. Try photographing reflections in puddles with a phone.
• Watch ducks or other birds.
• A museum, library or garden centre, the classic indoor destinations.
• Drive somewhere with a view and stay in the car with a flask. Rain on a windscreen with a view behind it is underrated.

A Word on Boredom and Screens

A rainy day is where screen time rules get tested, so two things worth knowing.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, on its family media plan guidance, does not say screens are the enemy. It suggests building in alternatives deliberately: "add fun swaps to your plan, like reading, outdoor play, family games and hobbies so screens don't crowd out other important experiences." It also recommends screen free zones "such as the dinner table, during homework and before bed" to "strengthen family face-to-face connections, promote learning and improve sleep." And it is explicit that this is not one size fits all: "every family is different, so create a plan that fits your routines and values."

The second thing is a defence of doing nothing. Harvard Health argues that children "need unstructured time" and that creativity and problem solving "are skills that must be learned and practiced." Their phrasing on how that happens is worth keeping: children need "to be allowed (perhaps forced) to make up their own games, figure things out, and amuse themselves."

Which is permission to close this list. Leave room for the child to invent the next activity.