Rainy Day Summer Fun

If you have small children and are a stay-at-home parent, like me, you probably had the same thought I did when you got up this morning: "Uh-oh, it's raining. What am I going to do with the kids all day?" Fortunately, I have some answers for you.

1. Go to the library

Admittedly, you will not be the only family who opts for this activity today. But that can be a good thing, because it means there will be other kids for your kids to socialize with. And if your library is anything like mine, the kids' room is no longer the silent, forbidding place of our youth, but instead a welcoming room encouraging kids to play and read out loud. There may even be activities like story hour, Lego club, and reading contests. Pick out some good read-aloud books, too, and when you get home, read the stories and challenge the kids to draw their own illustrations as you go along. Good titles that appeal to wide age ranges include "The Wizard of Oz," "The Indian in the Cupboard," "Bed-knob and Broomstick," "Matilda," the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, and "The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobischer."

2. Bake something.

My kids love to play in the kitchen, and they don't get a lot of opportunity in the summer, because I hate heating up the kitchen and tend to make supper on the grill. But a cool, rainy day is the perfect time to teach your kids how to knead bread, bake cookies, and peel vegetables. Here are a few of my favorite kid-friendly recipes:

• Challah bread
• Snickerdoodles
• Meatloaf
• Naan
• Confetti popcorn
• Edible peanut butter play-doh
• Pumpkin pie

3. Have a board game marathon

Pull out all your favorite board games - you know you have a stash gathering dust in a closet or on a shelf somewhere, everyone does - and take turns choosing which one to play. Our family favorites include Operation, Sum Swamp, Twister, the Princess Cupcake game, and of course, Chutes and Ladders and Candyland. If you honestly don't have a single board game in the house, get thee to Target and pick up a few! Seriously, it'll be the best 20 bucks you ever spent.

4. Do something messy - outside

If it's not pouring, or if there are short breaks in the rain, take advantage of Mother Nature's cleanup skills and do something messy on the porch or the sidewalk, and let her take care of cleaning up afterwards. Here are some fun, messy ideas to get you started:

• Elephant toothpaste
• Erupting rainbows
• Ooblek
• Pudding paint
• Summer snowballs

5. Put on a show

Depending on what your kids are into, this could be anything from a dance recital to a karaoke contest to a concert to a gymnastics exhibition to an art show to a play. Let them make decorations for the stage, choose background music, and create costumes. Help them write up or print out programs. Get out your best announcer voice and introduce each act as if it's a monster truck show. The hammier, the better. Invite the neighbor kids to be the audience - or, even better, get them to create acts and have all the parents over in the evening to be the audience. If some of the kids are too shy to be on stage, let them be the techies and pull back the curtain, control the lights, start the music, and hand out programs. 

6. Have a scavenger hunt

Make up a list of things that can be found around the house - a safety pin, a blue sock, a penny dated from the 1970s, a book with the word "of" in the title - and give the kids 20 minutes to find as many as they can. Or challenge them to collect items starting with each letter of the alphabet - in order. If they get stuck on a letter, give them a chore to do to get to skip it: make the beds, fold a load of laundry, sweep the kitchen. 

7. Do a science experiment

I know this sounds suspiciously like school, but experiments can be fun! Have the kids predict the outcome, then compare to what actually happens. Repeat the experiment to see if it comes out the same every time. Change something and see how the results differ. Talk about it. THINK about it. Figure it out! Here are some fun examples:

• Dissolve stuff in water
• Play with chemical reactions
• Build a marshmallow catapult
• Make clouds in a bottle
• Float a boat
• Play with static electricity

Of course, the best challenge of all is to challenge your kids to keep themselves entertained for the day! Give them some art supplies, some costumes, some toys, and some time - a warning that the alternative is helping you clean out closets all day wouldn't hurt, either - and see what they can come up with! You might be surprised at their creativity!

You Gotta Play the Game

Every once in a while, I’ll do something with my kids, or with my whole family, that reminds me of something I did with my parents when I was a kid. It might be camping, or cooking, or going apple picking, or reading a story out loud. Last night, it was playing board games.

I grew up in a household where we played games ALL THE TIME. We’d sit in front of the fireplace in the evening and play Life or Sorry or Trouble, we’d sit around the dining room table and play Uno or spoons, we’d sit inside our camper and play cribbage or backgammon by the light of the lantern. We’d even play all kinds of games in the car: finding the letters of the alphabet in order on signs, checking off license plates from all 50 states, a game called “Wordy Gurdy” where all the answers have to rhyme (What do you call counterfeit dollar bills? Funny money!), sometimes we’d bring along a Mad Libs pad. We had a stack of board games on the shelf in the closet, another stack behind the couch, a whole drawer full of decks of cards and books with rules for hundreds of card games, and a bag of travel-sized games in the coat closet. 

When we were small, we played Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, checkers, Old Maid, Don’t Break the Ice, War, and Operation. When we were a bit older, we played Boggle, Clue, Monopoly, Milles Bornes, Waterworks, Probe, dominos, and Yahtzee. When we had friends over, or at birthday parties, we played Twister, Pictionary, Taboo, and Scattergories. When it was just my sister and I, we’d play 2-person games like Battleship and Chinese Checkers and Simon and double solitaire and Mastermind.

I didn’t realize at the time how many skills I was learning by playing these games. Candyland and Sorry taught me colors and how to count. Chutes and Ladders taught me not to be disappointed by a setback. Operation and Don’t Break the Ice taught me fine motor skills. Boggle and Probe taught me spelling and vocabulary. Cribbage taught me math. Checkers and Battleship and Risk taught me strategy. Clue taught me logic. Monopoly taught me patience (and, with my sister’s help, how to make change). Pictionary and Taboo taught me to think creatively.

So now, when my kids ask to play a game, I look forward to not just having fun with them, but to the opportunity to teach them new skills. I can teach them to be good sports (and most especially, good losers), I can teach them that math and spelling can be fun, I can teach them to be patient and polite, I can teach them to be fair, I can teach them to think through their decisions and their actions, I can teach them that sometimes life isn’t fair. And most importantly, I can teach them that spending time together with friends and family is a good thing. A very good thing.