Need some screen free rainy day activities for kids? I’ve got you covered in this post with exciting themed ideas to keep your kids busy indoors. With each theme, I’ve listed the best audiobooks for kids paired with rainy day activities that will entertain your children and bring the story to life.
Children’s audiobooks are an easy way to pass the time on a rainy day without causing the post screen time behavior issues that children experience after hours of TV and tablet time. Audiobooks improve literacy skills, increase fluency, expand attention span, lower stress, promote relaxation, and allow kids to do hands-on activities while they listen and incur all of these benefits! Skip the screen time and try these rainy day activities for kids instead.
Most of these audiobook reccomendations are available on Audible.
Water Themed Rainy Day Activities
These rainy day activities are for the surfer soul who longs to be somewhere warm and cozy on a stormy afternoon. Also, for the little pirate in your life who dreams of being a sailor out to sea with a parrot and a few good comrades.
Best Beachy Audiobooks for Kids
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Classic Starts Version)
- Blue Bay Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
- The Sea Turtle Mystery: The Boxcar Children Mysteries, Book 151 by Gertrude Chandler Warner
- The Mystery of the Hidden Beach: Boxcar Children Mysteries, Book 41, by Gertrude Chandler Warner
- The Little Mermaid by Melissa Lagonegro
- Swiss Family Robinson adapted by Chris Tait (Classic Starts Version)
- Treasure Island: Classic Starts, Book 18 adapted by Chris Tait
Here are some simple rainy day activities for your mermaid/sailor at heart…
- Grab a simple kit off of Amazon for your kids to make their own DIY boat or Steam Ship.
- Provide a pirate play set with pirate action figures, an old map, a looking glass, an eye patch, and a ship for your little sailor to make his own fun on a rainy day.
- Make an easy ocean themed sensory bin for your children. Mix blue and brown kinetic sand in a large bin. Add mini mermaids, sea creatures, shells, castles, scoops, and sea turtle molds. Let your kids play with this aquatic sensory bin while listening to one of the beachy audiobooks above.
- Fill a tub with water and play with light up barbie mermaids, whales, fish, nets, and toy boats.
- Order some seashell beads and let your kids make beachy jewelry. Or drill holes in shells you have collected on previous trips to the beach.
- For younger kids, provide construction paper, sea life stickers, and mermaid coloring books.
History Themed Rainy Day Activities
Do your children love history like mine do? A living book with compelling, likeable characters can do historical stories far better justice than a dry textbook.
In our home, learning is not boring. Education is not designated just for a classroom setting. I have some great tips for you to make learning fun for your child by bringing history to life for them on a rainy day.
Break out the costume bin and let your kids use their imaginations to entertain themselves as they listen to a fabulous historical story or provide some of the rainy day activities below inspired by the colonial time period.
Best Historical Audiobooks for Kids
- Adventures in Odyssey American History Compilation 23 Stories
- Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
- Colonial Voices: Hear Them Speak: The Outbreak of the Boston Tea Party Told from Multiple Points of View by Kay Winters
- Felicity Love and Loyalty: American Girl: Historical Character (TM): Felicity, Book 1
- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Revolutionary War on Wednesday (Magic Tree House Book 22) by Mary Pope Osborne
- Rush Revere and the First Patriots: Time Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans by Rush Limbaugh
Got Littles?
Here are some fun rainy day activities to go with your colonial themed afternoon…
- Provide construction paper, markers, felt, yarn, scissors, tape, and glue. Challenge your children to create their very own paper dolls to play with. The yarn can be cut to make hair. The felt can be turned into clothes.
- Dim the lights in the house and have your child create a stack of handwritten letters to family and friends to send in the mail. Bonus points if you provide a quill pen with a bottle of ink and a book on how to write calligraphy! (Or keep it more simple by having your child write in cursive.)
- Bake a loaf of bread or a batch of muffins from scratch. (Or from a pre-made mix, who’s going to know?)
- Grab a simple embroidery kit for kids and let your child try their hand at cross stitching a pattern.
- If your child is old and mature enough, consider teaching them to whittle and carve objects from wood.
- Sew small pillows with your child.
Want to take this rainy day activity to the next level? Provide colonial costumes for your kids such as…
- Apron, dress, and bonnet
- George Washington costume
- Paul Revere costume
- Patriot costume
- Pioneer Girl costume
- Red Coat costume
- Suspenders, hat, button up shirt, nice pants, and boots
Once my kids are dressed up, they don’t need any help entertaining themselves. Their imaginations run wild.
Sibling Themed Rainy Day Activities
Have you noticed the attack on family going on in our world today? The cultural norm is to skip family meals, jampack the weekends, have every child enrolled in separate activities, attend all the peer birthday parties, and allow our children to isolate with their own private electronic devices in the evenings.
In a world that glorifies busyness, belittles parents, and idolizes friendships over family relationships, let’s help our children cultivate strong bonds with the people who live under their very same roof. These rainy day activities are aimed toward siblings.
I want my children to share special memories over great stories and imaginative play. Here are some of my favorite audiobooks that celebrate sibling relationships, plus rainy day activities your kids can do together…
Best Audiobooks for Siblings
- Classic Starts: Five Little Peppers and How They Grew adapted by Diane Namm
- The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney (Original)
- Little Women adapted by Deanna McFadden (Classic Starts Version)
- Best Family Every by Karen Kingsbury
- Finding Home by Karen Kingsbury
- Never Grow Up by Karen Kingsbury
- Adventure Awaits by Karen Kingsbury
- Being Baxters by Karen Kingsbury
- The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
Rainy Day Activities for Siblings
In our home, free play is the number one go-to for our kids. They love to make up their own adventures together. But when they kids are out of ideas and start saying the dreaded “I’m bored” we pop some popcorn, turn on a good audiobook, and let them have a game night together.
Here are some great games for brothers and sisters to play together on a rainy day…
- Candy Land
- Charades for Kids
- Checkers
- Chess
- Chutes and Ladders
- Clue Junior
- Connect 4
- Exploding Kittens
- Go Fish
- Guess Who
- Hi Ho Cherry-O
- Kingdomino
- Life Junior
- Life
- Monopoly Junior
- Monopoly
- Pit
- Scrabble Junior
- Scrabble
- Scout It Out
- Skip Bo
- Sleeping Queens
- Sorry
- Ticket to Ride
- Twister
- Uno
Grab my free printable Screen Free Family Bingo to connect with your loved ones without devices!
Boy Themed Rainy Day Activities
Many young boys have a lot of energy and crave a good adventure. When they are stuck inside with nowhere to expend that energy for hours on end, provide an engaging audiobook that will allow them to live vicariously through characters they can relate to. While they listen, provide one of these rainy day activities that they can do with their hands.
Best Audiobooks for Boys
- The Adventures of Robin Hood adapted by John Burrows (Classic Starts Version)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Classic Starts Version)
- The Swamp Robber by Paul Hutchens
- The Killer Bear by Paul Hutchens
- The Winter Rescue by Paul Hutchens
- The Lost Campers by Paul Hutchens
- The Chicago Adventure by Paul Hutchens
- The Secret Hideout by Paul Hutchens
- The Mystery Cave by Paul Hutchens
- Palm Tree Manhunt by Paul Hutchens
- One Stormy Day by Paul Hutchens
- The Mystery Thief by Paul Hutchens
Hands-On Rainy Day Activities for Boys
- Building with Legos
- Building with Lincoln Logs
- Building with Magnetic Building Tiles
- Building with STEM kits
- Playing with an outer space themed sensory bin
- Playing with toy dinosaurs and jungle animals from Dollar Tree
- Racing toy cars and trucks down homemade ramps
- Racing toy trains down a wooden track
Girl Themed Rainy Day Activities
My girls love a good story paired with a simple, hands-on activity. Here are some of our very favorites…
Best Audiobooks for Girls
- Heidi adapted by Lisa Church (Classic Starts Version)
- The Secret Garden adapted by Martha Hailey (Classic Starts Version)
- The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
- Riley Mae and the Ready Eddy Rapids by Jill Osborne
- Kirsten: An American Girl
Simple Rainy Day Activities
- Drawing
- Painting
- Stenciling
- Knitting
- Making jewelry with beads
- Matching and sorting colored blocks and bears
- Playing with baby dolls
- Playing with barbies
- Assembling a plastic flower garden
- Playing with toy animals and woodland creatures
- Completing word searches
- Working on puzzles
- Writing stories
Need some more children’s audiobooks for your kids on a rainy day? Check out his post:
Rainy day activities for families
Here are some places you can go to do rainy day activities for families…
- Aquarium
- Art Museum
- Historical Museum
- Science Museum
- Library
- Ice Cream Shop
- Family Friendly Restaurant (Texas Roadhouse)
- Indoor glass blowing
- Indoor pottery painting
- Indoor trampoline park
- Indoor play gym
How do I keep my kids entertained on a rainy day?
Audiobooks are one of our favorite screen free activities for kids. While television promotes passivity of the mind, audiobooks encourage active thinking, analyzing, and the development of important literacy skills for children.
Video games and iPad games have negative effects on children as well. Kids zone out, appearing sedate like zombies while they play these games. When parents say game time is over, many children have angry outbursts and struggle transferring to their next activity.
Instead of screen time, try engaging audiobooks to keep your kids entertained on a rainy day.
Rainy day activities for 10 year olds
Here are some fun rainy day activities for 10 year olds…
- Make slime
- Play Kanoodle
- Build something difficult with Legos
- Try Klutz Lego Gear Bots
- Complete a 200 piece puzzle
- Do a science experiment kit
- Solve a Rubiks cube
- Set up Dominoes
- Dart board practice
- Paint rocks
- Indoor boxing
- Race remote control cars
- Fly remote control planes
What can a 12 year old do on a rainy day?
Here are some simple screen free activities your 12 year old can do on a rainy day…
- Tie dye shirts
- Listen to an audiobook
- Build a DIY solar powered robot
- Try Lego Chain Reactions
- Complete a 500 piece puzzle
- Work on difficult riddles and brain teasers
- Follow a recipe book and cook something
- Indoor exercise routine
- Create a wall collage
- Do some scrapbooking
- Memorize poetry, presidents, or passages of scripture
- Make jewelry
What other things can you do on a rainy day?
- Read
- Write
- Bake
- Cook
- Craft
- Dance
- Knit
- Sew
- Crochet
- Cross stich
- Crossword Puzzle
- Logic games
- Solve math riddles
- Solve word riddles
- Put together a model airplane or ship
Share in the comments below your favorite rainy day activity!
How can I help my bored child?
It is okay for children to be bored. Figuring out one’s own boredom is an important skill kids need to develop. Don’t feel mom guilt when your child is bored and don’t feel pressure to hand them a screen.
Most children today are on screens for 5 to 7 hours a day, for pleasure alone.
Kids who get excessive screen time are not experiencing healthy boredom. If we give our kids screens to pacify their boredom or mask difficult behaviors, we won’t be equipping them with the skills to entertain themselves.
In our home, we aim to provide the time, space, and supplies but not dictate the activities our children do for entertainment. They choose from the crafts, toys, and costumes we have and they make their own fun.
More often than not, our children choose to free play outdoors where the possibilities are endless and the supplies are very simple.
Trees become lighthouses. Sticks become swords. The trampoline becomes a ship out to sea.
If we wade through the discomfort of our children being bored and give them the time and space for unstructured play, they will figure it out.
Don’t feel pressure to occupy your bored child for all hours of the day. Let them be bored. Let them play.
Rainy Day Boredom
One last thought on rainy day activities. Don’t be afraid to bundle your child up in a poncho and some squeaky boots and allow them to stomp through puddles on a drizzling afternoon. I love the book called “There’s No Such Things as Bad Weather.” The Scandinavian author discusses how there are only poor clothing choices, but that kids can thrive in play in any sort of weather.
This is different than Western thinking. We have been conditioned to believe that we should only send our children outdoors to play in “ideal” weather and that we should provide an endless stream of entertainment when they are indoors.
Old school parents took an entirely different approach and their children were better off for it.
My grandmother sent her kids outside to play on the weekends all day long. They rode bikes freely through the neighborhood at young ages. They explored the woods with siblings and peers. They weren’t helicopter parented. They were free to be kids and they turned out just fine.
I think we modern moms could learn a thing or two from Grams about stressing less and trusting our kids more to create their own innocent fun.
Leave your thoughts about childhood boredom in the comments below!
Curious about the importance of unstructured play and child development? Check out this post:
Leave a Reply