Rainy Day Activities for a Crowd

It’s hard enough to entertain your own kids on a rainy day, but what do you do if they have a gaggle of friends over? When you’re faced with a larger group of kids who can’t go outside to let off some steam, don’t panic. Here are a few ideas to keep smiles on their faces rain or shine!
Activity 1: Get crafty in the kitchen.  No matter what age the kids are, you can kill some time and make your home warm and cosy on a rainy day by getting the group involved in a baking or cooking activity. Create an assembly line with different ingredients so that everyone has something to do – put the older kids in charge of measuring and the younger kids in charge of stirring. Some fun projects in the kitchen could include baking and decorating cookies in different shapes, or making your own pizzas with customized toppings. If you already have lunch plans, whip up a big batch of play-dough instead and dye it every color of the rainbow.  Activity 2: Hold an indoor scavenger hunt.  Divide the group up into teams and create a treasure hunt in your home. It takes a bit of creativity, but you can create rhyming clues or treasure maps as needed which lead the kids to prizes around the house. If you don’t want to lead them to prizes, try hiding coloured balls with each corresponding to a certain number of points. The child or team with the most points at the end is the winner.  Activity 3: Play a massive game of hide and seek.  Board games are great for smaller groups of children, but if you have a large group it might be better to plan something a bit more active. Hide and seek or sardines are classic games that can engage a big group, especially if you let them work in teams.  Activity 4: Be prepared with a rainy day box.  You can get a lot of great ideas for taking care of big groups of children with this list of childcare courses from training.com.au, but one of the main facets of any childcare course is teaching you to always be prepared! You can keep this in mind by creating a special rainy day box filled with craft supplies, dress-up materials, and secret toys that the kids won’t have soon before. This should keep the whole group occupied for quite some time as they divvy up all the fun.  Activity 5: Create a home cinema.  Don’t just put on the TV automatically for the little ones. Instead, make a special event of it when the rain’s pouring down. Decorate and create your own indoor cinema, complete with popcorn, blankets, and a big screen. If you want to get extra creative you could make your own film using your mobile phone’s camera, creating your own costumes and scripts.  It’s not always easy to entertain a crowd of kids when the weather’s poor. But with a little bit of planning and the willingness to get the house a bit messy you can have a blast, no sunshine needed!
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