“The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.”

How miserable can it get? It’s raining. No shining sun to greet you. Perhaps you, like Sally and her brother in the Cat in the Hat, are assuming the day is ruined. Says Sally’s brother, “We sat there, we two. And I said, ‘How I wish we had something to do!’” Well, his wish was granted, and now so is yours (and we won’t even terrorize your pet fish or ruin your house in the process!)

Start by resisting the temptation to turn on the TV and vegetate on the couch. There is so much to do, to see, to learn, and to play; your problem isn’t going to be that you have nothing to do, but that you have too many things you want to do! Start off right with a good breakfast and plan your day. Here are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

Go Outside Anyway
Assuming there’s no lightning and it’s not a driving, cold rain, put on those galoshes and raincoats, grab an umbrella and head out for a walk or backyard exploration. Children riding in strollers are more susceptible to getting chilled, so bring a blanket if need be, and shield them from the falling water. Don’t wander too far from your home or car in case the rain picks up or you get too wet, and seek shelter immediately if there is lightning.

Make a game out of seeing who can find the biggest mud puddle to splash in. Point out the rainclouds or go on a rainbow hunting party. Be a “worm rescuer” and gently collect those confused worms who wander out onto the pavement. As you put them back in the grass, offer a little lesson about habitats and the environment. Worms are great for plants: they turn the soil and provide oxygen and food for the plants. Why not collect them in a jar with some nice dirt and take them home to your garden? This is a particular favorite activity with some young boys I know, though counting worms and being the first to see each one is a good game for those a little too squeamish for actual worm handling.

In a spring rain, everything seems so much greener. Why is that? Are the plants just so happy to have a refreshing drink of water? Maybe. Discuss how rain is mother nature’s way of giving her plants and animals a drink; then bring along some bottled water and take a drink yourselves. The best learning experiences for small children don’t come from a classroom setting, but from gentle exploration of the world around them.

If you have a deep mud puddle or pond, experiment with how things float. Does a leaf float? How about this stick? This rock? Can you skip rocks? Perhaps before you leave on your trek, you can make a boat to take out on the water. Craft books geared towards children offer ideas on making simple boats out of everything from milk cartons to balsa wood. One of our favorites is a simple raft made from packaging peanuts and Popsicle sticks (see section on “Saving for a Rainy Day”). Another great idea is to make a rain gauge; a simple plastic container with wide opening and a plastic ruler will do the trick. Place it in an open area where rain can fall unobstructed, and check it throughout the day. Report it to your local news station, which may announce your measurement during their weather forecast.

(Safety tip: Please keep in mind that even in a light rain, you should avoid streams, rivers, and any large drains or run-off areas. Flash flooding is an apt name; a flood can happen literally too fast for you to react, so play it safe.)

Outside In
Really just too nasty to go outside? Pretend you’re outside anyway. One of our favorite spring activities is a picnic lunch, which, let’s face it, is not much fun even in a light rain. Is that going to stop us? NEVER! Prepare your picnic lunch as usual, and pack it in a basket. Bring a blanket and find that perfect picnic place in the house. Is your living room suddenly a grassy meadow high atop a mountain? Or perhaps the family room has magically become a sandy beach with palm trees sheltering you from the sun? Only you can decide. Spread your blanket and talk about all the wonderful sights and sounds around you. Do you hear the ocean? Is that an eagle flying over there? Indoor picnics are fun and ant-free (unless you invite them yourselves, as we have been known to invite Flick, ant star of the silver screen.)

A good camping trip is fun too. Dining rooms chairs, sheets, blankets and pillows artfully arranged make a dandy indoor tent. Get out a flashlight and huddle in your tent telling spooky stories or playing with hand shadows. Sing camp songs. If nap time is still part of your day, catch a snooze inside the tent!

Treasure Hunt
First, you need a treasure. Small toys, stickers, and little self-contained art projects work well. Hide the treasure somewhere in the house. Your next step depends on your child’s abilities. Crawlers and toddlers can follow a string to the treasure and “dig it up” from underneath a blanket. Older kids can be given a map (drawing of the house with a big red X marking the treasure spot.) You can get even more elaborate and have one map lead your child to a second map, or create a series of clues eventually leading to the treasure. Older children love helping create this game almost as much as the younger ones enjoy playing it.

Come On Baby, Let’s Do the Twist
Need more physical activity? Throw a dance party! Clear out the middle of a room, strike up the stereo and have some fun! Alternating music choices works well, and when it’s your turn, make it a slow one so you’ll have the energy to keep up! My three year old is particularly fond of Chubby Checker, and she’ll bop just as easily to a good old-fashioned Beatles tune as she will to a snappy Wiggles song. Try not to use videos, even musical ones, if you can help it; it becomes too easy to sit and watch and forget to SHAKE YOUR CABOOSE!

Shake, Rattle and Roll
Speaking of music, why not create a band? Work with instruments you already have or make a few of your own. Even the tiniest babies love to shake wrist or ankle rattles! Play along with music, or just have at it. What things around your house make music? Pots and pans and a wooden spoon? How about an empty plastic water/soda bottle, add a handful of uncooked corn kernels, tighten the cap and shake, shake, shake. Take another bottle and put a handful of rice in that one. Tighten the lid. Which one sounds more like rain if you slowly turn it over? Which one is louder? Got one of those great oatmeal boxes? They make awesome drums! Most craft books will have a section on creating different musical instruments. Look for one that has a fun “rain stick” project-- a great choice for this rainy day!

Singing (You Guessed It) In the Rain
Share a “Singing in the Rain” time! This is rapidly becoming our favorite car game, not just rainy day in-door game. The object is simple, and you can have a winner if you want to keep track of who comes up with the most songs, but it’s just as much fun to work as a team to reach your goal. We set the goal of 25 Songs about Rain for our little one, but it quickly mushroomed; every time we came up with one, three more popped into our heads. The rules are simple: the song must be about rain/water or have rain/water in the lyrics. To claim a song, you must sing a relevant verse; only in the cases of instrumentals or where “rain” appears only in the title are you exempt from singing.

Think about it. “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “Rain Rain, Go Away,” (though with all the fun you are having, you may be changing the words!), “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I Can See Clearly Now,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and “Over the Rainbow,” and of course, the Muppet classic, “Rainbow Connection” all work for your list! Have a list of 100 songs and think you’ve exhausted every rain song in the book? Don’t be too sure! My family came up with 97 suitable for playing for our child to hear (and a web search found us at least a 150 more, but we thought that was cheating a bit.) Yet you’ll be surprised at how many songs your little ones can think up. Consider broadening your “weather” song theme--how about songs about sunny days? Why ARE there so many songs about rainbows and rain? Feeling adventurous? Make up your own song about rain, or change the words to some already familiar tunes.

Story Time and Make-believe
Reading is an excellent indoor activity. Check your local library and bookstores for scheduled story times (your regional BabyZone calendar will have a good list for you), or snuggle up and enjoy some great books at home. Seem too tame? Liven up your story time by having kids act out the parts of the characters in familiar stories. Go all out and make costumes for the characters. Keeping a dress-up box handy is a fun way to make this a truly spectacular performance. Don’t be afraid to follow along familiar story-lines, especially for the toddler-preschool set, who may become upset if you deviate too far from known stories, but don’t be afraid to try improvisation either. Ask your little actor, “What would you have done if you were the wolf trying to get those little pigs?”

Make puppets and have a puppet show to tell the story. Puppets can be store bought plush wonders, or they can be brown paper bags with crayon-drawn faces. Drawings of characters cut out and placed on Popsicle sticks work wonders for table top shows. An old cardboard box for the stage and a scrap for curtains, and you can make a first-class table top puppet theater in minutes.

Story cubes are another excellent, easy-to-make tool for indoor play. Cut out pictures according to the following themes: People, Places and Activities, 6 pictures per box. Glue the pictures onto the boxes, one picture on each side. One box is our “Who” cube, where all the pictures are of different people or characters. Our “What” box has pictures of different activities on each side, and the “Where” box shows pictures of different places. Take turns lightly rolling each box across the floor like a giant die. When the person who is “it” has rolled them all, he or she makes a story about the person on top of the “who” box, doing the activity on the “what” box at the location of the “where” box. Little ones will simply say, “Grandmom bakes cookies at the beach,” while older children can make up much more elaborate stories about what kind of cookies, and who’s coming to eat them, etc. Add other boxes if you like, for example, “When” and “With Whom” boxes. (Special thanks to Kindermusik for the inspiration behind this game.)

Pure Poetry
Children love poems. Set aside some time for a poetry reading or recitation. Think about writing your own family poems. What words rhyme with ‘rain’ or ‘puddle’? How does rain make you feel? What does the rain do? What is your favorite thing about rainy days? Let your imaginations run wild.

Nothing Says Lovin’
There’s just something comforting about a warm snack on a cold day. Enlist the help of your kids when making that special afternoon treat! Have them pour in ingredients you’ve already measured, or let them measure and crack eggs themselves if they’re old enough. It make take longer for small hands to mix the ingredients, but the pride in your children’s eyes when they bite down into a treat THEY baked is worth every second of mixing time. Little hands are just about the right size for rolling a small ball of dough, or putting sprinkles on the tops of sugar cookies. My daughter is particularly good at “Timing Duty,” that is, letting me know when the alarm goes off and I need to pull the cookies out of the oven. (Obviously, normal kitchen safety precautions always apply and small children should not be near sharp knives or hot objects.)

Take in a Show
You can have a special matinee movie in your own house--cheaper than a theater and with better popcorn. Videos are easier to control than TV, there is a definite beginning and end, and shows don’t slide into one another the way television does. And don’t underestimate the absence of commercials! If you feel that you just want a quiet day at home, consider scheduling a movie, but make it special. Don’t automatically toss in a bag of microwave popcorn if you can pop your corn the old-fashioned way, heating up oil and letting the kernels pop. Children are delighted by the sound of the popping corn against a metal pan. Somehow, the popcorn just tastes better that way, anyway. Resist the urge to pop in and out of the room yourself to finish the laundry. Relax and enjoy the film.

Out of the House and Out of the Rain
Sometimes, you just need to get OUT. Still in the mood for a movie? Take in a matinee of a good, age-appropriate movie. Check out the local children’s theatre groups; if you’re in luck, you may be attending a great live performance before the day is out. Make a play date with some young friends and invite them to join you for story time at the library or book store. (It goes without saying that inviting friends along will make any of the rainy day suggestions potentially more fun and quite probably more chaotic.)

Running Amok Indoors
If your little one has too much energy, and you’re afraid the house will soon look as if a tornado has passed through, there are alternatives. YMCAs, local rec centers, and indoor play centers all offer places for kids to expend energy. Offering all the fun of the outdoor parks, combined with the shelter from the elements, kid-oriented indoor play centers are an excellent opportunity to let little bodies run and jump, slide and tumble. Indoor play spaces generally have a fee associated with them. If you’ve found yourself in need of a place like this through winter months, consider a membership package, which may save you money in the long run.

The Art of Being Entertained
Art museums are colorful, fascinating places. Sometimes we think of museums as places for adults, but most art is for everyone. Avoid exhibits that may be too explicit or violent for your child (a quick talk with a docent will steer you away from controversial material), but prepare yourself for some interesting moments. Preschoolers on up will enjoy almost any type of art --sculptures, paintings, modern, classical--you name it. If you have an especially little one, remember that almost nothing interests babies as much as faces, and hence, babies LOVE portrait galleries.

Don’t let the art museum trip be a passive activity. No, you don’t want your children running around screaming, but you don’t need to tiptoe either. Speaking in indoor voices is respectful and appropriate. Don’t be intimidated, be art critics! “What do you think of all those colors?” “What shapes do you see?” “What do you think that woman is thinking?” “What does that remind you of?” And yes, even the classic art question of all time, “Do you like it? Why or why not?” Kids don’t know Kandinski from Rembrandt, but they know what they like--let them experience it, let them think about it!

Be aware that over-stimulation is likely if you try to tour a whole museum. Just pick a few rooms and linger. You aren’t on anyone else’s timetable. It’s always fun to go to the museum gift shop on the way out and buy children a little masterpiece of their very own (aren’t postcards great?) to put up in their rooms or in your scrapbook. You’ll have so much fun, you’re going to want a scrapbook page devoted just to this special rainy day.

Take the art experience home with you. When you come home, have a finger painting party. Draw with your crayons, your pencils, whatever. Make a self-portrait. Play with the paints--what colors mix to make other colors? What happens when you add water to paint? (There’s that pesky water again!) What different effects do you get when you have paint with lots of water, and paint with only a little? Powdered tempura paint is a great tool to use when exploring this difference.

Were the kids interested in sculpture? Paper mache is sticky, messy and extremely fun, and even involves a little multi-media with the painting at the end. Even young kids can help make it, but note that drying time is often frustrating for little ones, so have an interim activity in mind. Decide what shape you want and attempt to create it using inflated balloons. Balloons can be attached using masking tape. Mix water and flour into a whipped cream consistency (general proportions are 1/2 cup flour to 1/4 cup water). Dip strips of newspaper into the mixture, squeeze out excess water and apply to the balloons, being sure to overlap and cover the entire object. Children will delight in the gooey fun. Allow to dry. Talk about evaporation (yes, another opportunity to sneak in a little hands-on lesson.) When it’s dried completely, paint, attach scraps of fabric, strings, whatever you need to do to finish that amazing sculpture.)

Of course, many kids already have the ultimate sculpture material - PLAY-DOH! You can even make your own versions - there are many different recipes.

Don’t forget to put your artwork up on display!

Museums: Not Just for Paintings
Not all museums center on art. History museums, science museums, children’s museums, and those focused on other cultures all offer you something wonderful.

History museums are less likely to be great entertainment for the very young since they have not yet developed a sense of the past; however, older kids will have great fun seeing how people just like them lived 200, 100, even 30 years ago. It’s best to spark their imaginations by relating museum displays to real life people. “Many years ago, children your age had to do their homework by candlelight. They didn’t have electricity to light lamps, they used oil.” Keep it simple and those gentle lessons will be learned because it’s just too much fun imagining the way things used to be. When you get home, organize some activities that relate to a specific time period. How about a 1960s day where you make a tie-dye and listen to the Beatles?

Cultural centers are also an excellent entertainment possibility. For example, if you have a Chinese Cultural center nearby, immerse yourself in that culture for the day: eat Chinese food, go to the center, find some Chinese music to enjoy. All ages will have fun with this idea. Learn how to say “hello,” “I love you,” “thank you,” and “good-bye” in a different language. Learn an age-appropriate game from another culture. The possibilities are endless.

Almost all children can enjoy science and natural science museums. Little ones will be fascinated with many displays, which tend to show how things are put together, how they work. Cause and effect are fairly consistent lessons in many science museums, and they are the lessons young children just love to learn. Are your kids dino-nuts? Want to learn about the weather? Perhaps they are fascinated, as are so many youngsters, with cars, planes, etc. Many science-oriented museums have discovery rooms where kids get hands-on experience. For more science, check out some of the dozens of library books devoted to simple home experiments that are and educational.

Saving for a Rainy Day
It’s not money that’s going to save those rainy days, it’s creativity, attitude, and a few supplies. Be excited, and keep your child excited about the possibilities ahead of you. Try to be prepared too. Consider keeping a special Rainy Day box filled with arts and craft supplies and craft books. You don’t want to find yourself staring out the window at the rain; you want to know that you have a craft book filled with ideas and materials waiting in the hall closet. Our personal favorite craft book is the Muppet Craft Book, but you can find dozens of very fun ones. Explore the offerings at your public library before purchasing a book, though, because you should try a few ideas in each book to make sure the directions are clear and the projects age suitable.

Consider adding a supply of self-contained arts and craft projects, as well. Most craft stores sell small projects that can be completed by children in an afternoon, and all the necessary parts are already packaged for you. Small games and toys from a party store work well as treasures, game prizes, and so forth. Keep your play-dough recipe and paper mache recipes available. Print out a copy of this article, and write notes to yourself about your own ideas. We recently started keeping a Rainy Day scrapbook as well, and we plan to document our special rainy days together. Rainy days can be memorable highlights if you treat them properly. It truly is all about attitude.

Take a page from the Cat in the Hat and make your motto on rainy days:

“I know it is wet
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have
Lots of good fun that is funny!”