5 Rainy Day Activities for Preschoolers

Activities and games on a rainy day can keep children learning and laughing. Here are five ideas preschoolers are sure to enjoy when they have to stay inside.

5 Rainy Day Activities for Preschoolers

Frog Jump

Learning about frogs on a rainy day can bring a little action and some creativity into the classroom. Children will enjoy this frog jumping activity that strengthens their gross motor skills, introduces math concepts, as well as, builds their imagination. To begin, lay a piece of tape on the floor marking the point of the starting jump. As children line up and jump as far as they can like a frog, place pieces of tape where they land. Incorporate an early math lesson in this activity by talking about and measuring things such as distance, height, and length. When all the kids have jumped a time or two, encourage a little pretend play. The floor can become a frog pond with the tape pieces being lily pads. Toddlers can jump from one pad to the next creating frog adventures.

Edible Sandbox

Kids love to get their hands dirty while learning through sensory play. A great way for children to engage in education on a rainy day is to create an edible sandbox. Fill a sand and water table with dried oatmeal and broken up snacks, such as pretzels, whole grain cereal, and raisins. Provide a plastic scoop, cup, and bowl, and watch children explore with all their senses. Toddlers can dig for treasures, practice scooping, and work on their pouring skills. Learning through sight, touch, and taste will make this activity popular with little learners.

Indoor Mazes

Mazes provide an introduction on how to problem solve. Trying to get through a maze, hitting a dead end, and rerouting teaches children that even though they may have come across an obstacle, they need to figure out a way to make it through. This is a great lesson, not only for the maze itself, but in life, as well. Get started by designing a number of different mazes for children to work through. Draw out small mazes on paper or cardstock, create a floor maze with some painters tape for toddlers to step around, or get real creative and use cardboard boxes to construct a walk through maze in the classroom.

Block City

Head over to the block area to help toddlers construct a block city. Making the town up of blocks of all different styles, colors, and sizes, children can line up, stack, sort and organize their block buildings into a city. Encourage important community buildings such as a school, library, police station, and fire station. Include a grocery store, a bakery, movie theater, and other landmarks. Add the houses and then have fun playing in the newly constructed block city. Drive miniature cars through the neighborhoods, walk tiny people figurines around the town, and then perhaps, have a building demolition and rebuild. Block cities are hours of fun on a rainy day.

Sponge Painting

Supporting creativity and strengthening fine motor skills, arts and crafts provide a number of enjoyable activities on a rainy day. For colorful sponge paintings, gather a variety of paint colors, a number of sponges, and some art paper. Toddlers can squirt, dip, and spray their sponges full of colors and press them onto the paper, creating sponge paintings. This can messy, so it helps to make sure children put on their smocks first to protect their clothes before they become masterpiece artists. After they have made their sponge painting designs, display them around the classroom to brighten up the rainy day.

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