Right now
Rainy day activities for kids that use what you have
The park is cancelled. The table is not. If you need ten minutes first, cocoa and a window is fine. Then pick one craft from paper, a plate, or a tube you already own — not a roundup, and not a drive to the craft aisle in the rain.
When the park is cancelled, pick a window
Rainy day crafts fail when they try to fill the whole afternoon. They succeed when they fill thirty minutes, or a Saturday stretch you can pause when someone is hungry again. That is the same question Crafty asks in the app: how long do you have?
This page leads with making. Indoor rainy day activities that are games, forts, or a movie can wait until after the glue dries. If restlessness is the real weather, the sibling page is boredom busters. If you are simply stuck inside, start from indoor crafts.
Preschool rainy day ideas should stay short: tear, stick, decorate. The adult cuts. A four-year-old does not need a unit study about clouds.
What you need (the rain is not an excuse to shop)
- Printer paper or construction paper. Newspaper if that is what you have.
- Glue stick, tape, child scissors.
- One paper plate. One cardboard tube. Markers.
- Optional: a puddle-walk leaf, washed and dried, for a rubbing — skip anything you cannot name.
If the cupboard is paper-only, that is enough. Paper crafts and paper plate crafts were invented for days like this.
Time, who is at the table, adult jobs
- TimeThirty minutes after lunch, or a longer Saturday you can interrupt. Setup counts. See 30-minute crafts.
- WhoAdult in the room. Mixed ages can share one pile of scraps if jobs split: tear / glue / cut / photograph.
- Adult jobsBlades, hot glue, ovens, glass. Opening the window a crack is not a craft. Watching the rain for ten minutes is allowed, once.
Five rainy-day makes
Cover the table. Put a towel under the plates if you are painting. Pick one.
Window paper rain
Cut or tear long strips. Tape them to the top of a window so they hang like weather. Blue is optional; leftover flyer paper works. The adult handles the tape high on the glass.
Paper plate umbrella (flat)
Half a plate is a canopy. A rolled paper handle, taped on. Do not expect it to work outside. It is a picture that sits on the fridge. More plates: paper plate crafts.
A chain for the hallway
Gray, blue, yellow — or whatever is in the drawer. Loop until the rain eases or the glue stick runs out. Honest steps: how to make paper chains.
Tube rainstick (quiet version)
Adult tapes one end. Kid adds dry rice or pasta — a small amount. Adult tapes the other end. Wrap the outside in paper. This is a shaker, not an instrument you need to live with all week.
Porch-leaf rubbing, finished dry
If you step out under an eave and find a leaf, bring it in, dry it, tape it under paper, crayon on its side. Leaf rubbings belong to rainy days as much as to autumn.
How Crafty helps
On a wet afternoon, the useful thing is a project that already matches the window you have. Crafty — iOS, listed as Crafty Kids — starts you on one make, rolls materials into a list if you are short on glue, and keeps the steps on the phone like a recipe. Photograph the finish so the paper rain is not only recycling on Tuesday.
One project is typically free in a week. Free projects stay open. The rest of the library is membership; yearly can include Family Sharing for up to six. A trial exists when Apple has one on the plan.
Keep going
Widen the day with indoor crafts. If the rain becomes restlessness, boredom. Paper-heavy weeks: paper and spring table crafts when the calendar says so. Age band: preschool.
Questions
What should we do with kids on a rainy day at home?
Pick one craft that uses paper, a plate, or a tube you already have. Cover the table. If you need ten minutes first, cocoa and a window is fine. Then make. Do not open a list of forty activities.
Are rainy day crafts different from indoor crafts?
The materials are the same. The weather is the reason you are inside. Rainy-day pages tend to promise “boredom busters.” Treat rain as a cancelled park and choose one make with a real clock.
What rainy day crafts work for preschoolers?
Paper plates, tearing paper, glue-stick collage, and tape-heavy chains. The adult cuts eye holes, small shapes, and anything with a blade. Steps stay short. The adult stays in the room.
On iOS
Open this kind of project in Crafty
When the park is cancelled, a bench is more useful than a feed. Get the app for the next wet week, the list, and the shelf.
- A window of time, not an all-day agenda
- Materials you can usually find
- A photograph when it dries
- Free projects stay open