50 fun rainy day activities for toddlers and infants, from crafts to indoor games, sensory play and simple science to keep little ones happy and learning.
Rainy days can make it challenging to keep little ones entertained, but with a bit of creativity, you can turn a gloomy day into an opportunity for fun and learning. In addition to classic indoor activities, here are more imaginative ideas that will delight infants and toddlers.
1. Indoor Camping Adventure
Set up a small tent or make one using blankets draped over furniture. Bring in pillows, stuffed animals and a flashlight for storytelling or shadow play. Sing campfire songs and enjoy a pretend picnic inside the tent.
2. Edible Finger Paint
Create safe finger paints using yogurt tinted with natural food colouring. Let your toddler explore making colorful designs on a tray or paper. This is a great sensory activity that is safe for curious little mouths.
3. Balloon Toss
Blow up a balloon and play practice hitting it across the room or just keeping it in the air. This simple game helps toddlers practice coordination and keeps them moving without needing much space.
4. Window Art with Washable Markers
Let your child create art directly on windows using washable markers. The vertical surface is great for arm and hand muscle development and cleanup is easy with a damp cloth.
Tip: To clean washable markers off glass, simply wipe the surface with a damp cloth or sponge. For stubborn marks, use a mild soapy solution or a mixture of water and vinegar. Dry with a clean cloth for a streak-free finish.
5. Rainbow Block Towers
Give your toddler a set of coloured blocks and challenge them to build rainbow towers by stacking the colours in order. You can guide them through naming the colours and counting the blocks as they build. This activity encourages colour recognition, sequencing and motor skills.
6. Homemade Musical Instruments
Make simple instruments together. Use a sealed container with rice or beans for a shaker, or stretch rubber bands around a box for a guitar. Let your child experiment with the sounds they can create.
7. Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Set up a toddler-friendly scavenger hunt. Give clues or pictures of objects to find around the house such as a red sock or a favourite book. This activity promotes problem-solving and attention to detail.
8. Block Bowling
Set up coloured blocks like bowling pins at one end of a hallway or open space. Give your toddler a soft ball to roll and knock them down. This fun game helps develop coordination, colour recognition and cause and effect understanding.
9. Homemade Modeling Dough
Make easy modeling dough by mixing 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt and 1/2 cup of water with a few drops of food colouring. Stir until it forms a dough, adding a little more flour if it is sticky. Let your toddler squish, roll and shape the dough for a fun hands-on activity that builds fine motor skills.
10. Indoor Sand Play
Fill a shallow container with play sand or even cornmeal. Provide scoops, small cups and toy animals for imaginative play. Place a sheet underneath for easy cleanup.
11. Indoor Fishing Game
Create fish shapes from colourful foam or felt and attach paper clips. Use a stick with yarn and a magnet on the end for a fishing pole. Let your toddler fish in a pretend pond laid out on the floor.
12. Stuffed Animal Picnic
Set up a pretend picnic with toy food and invite all the stuffed animals. Add a craft by having your toddler make invitations and deliver them to their stuffed animals first. Toddlers can help serve food and drinks, practicing sharing skills.
13. Dance Party
Create a playlist of favourite songs or ask your toddler what they want to listen to. Provide scarves and ribbon wands, or try freeze dance to build listening skills.
14. Shadow Puppet Theater
Hang a sheet and shine a lamp behind it to create a simple stage. Cut shapes from cardboard or use hands to tell stories with shadows. Encourage children to invent characters and plotlines or act out favorite tales. Experiment with moving the light source closer or farther to change the size of the shadows, sparking curiosity about light and perspective.
15. Indoor Garden Planting
Set up small pots with soil and help your toddler plant easy seeds like beans or herbs. Let them water and check on their plants each day. If you do not have soil on hand, place a seed between a wet paper towel inside a zip lock bag. Tape it to a window with lots of sunlight and let your child observe as it slowly sprouts!
16. Nature Collage
Collect leaves, petals and twigs on dry walks and use them to make textured art. Provide glue sticks and heavy paper. Encourage them to form simple objects or shapes, such as using petals to make a flower, leaves to create a tree or twigs to build a house. This activity nurtures fine motor skills, imagination and a connection to nature, while giving your child the joy of making something unique.
17. Bubble Catch
Blow bubbles in the living room and encourage toddlers to pop them with their hands, elbows or feet. Add music for a bubble dance.
18. Sensory Walk
Create a path of different textures using towels, bubble wrap, pillows and soft rugs. Let your toddler walk or crawl along the path barefoot.
19. Sensory Bottle
Fill clear bottles with water, glitter, beads and food colouring. Seal tight and let toddlers shake and watch the swirling magic. Talk to your toddler about the different sounds they hear and try to make music together!
20. Fizzing Colours Experiment
Set out a muffin tin filled with baking soda and small bowls of vinegar mixed with food colouring. Let toddlers use droppers to add colored vinegar and watch the fizzy reaction. This simple science activity is safe and fascinating for little ones.
21. Toy Car Wash
Set up a basin of soapy water and a dry towel station. Give your toddler a sponge and let them have fun playing with their toys while also washing and drying them! This teaches them responsibility and care for their belongings while strengthening coordination and fine motor skills. It also provides a wonderful sensory experience and can turn into a calming, focused activity that keeps them engaged.
Tip: Add some bubble bath for extra bubbles and a fun scent!
22. Build a Cardboard Train
Use large cardboard boxes to create train cars that toddlers can sit in or push around. Decorate the train with crayons, stickers or paper shapes and take a pretend journey through different rooms of the house.
23. Sticky Wall Art
Cover a section of wall or a large board with contact paper sticky side out. Give toddlers lightweight objects like felt pieces, paper shapes or yarn to stick and create patterns.
24. Shape Hunt
Cut out large paper shapes and tape them on walls and furniture. Send toddlers on a hunt to find and name each one. Put some in hard to find places to challenge your toddler’s observation skills, memory and problem solving as they search and identify the shapes.
25. Gentle Obstacle Course
Create a path with cushions, low tables to crawl under and rolled blankets to step over. Add a finish line with a soft toy prize to celebrate their effort. Encourage your toddler to navigate the course at their own pace, cheering them on as they climb, crawl and balance. This playful obstacle course helps build gross motor skills, coordination and confidence while offering lots of fun and movement on an indoor day.
26. Colour Match Hop
Lay down coloured paper sheets on the floor and call out colours for toddlers to hop onto. Add different shapes as well to challenge your toddler and keep the game fresh. This activity combines movement with colour recognition, shape identification and listening skills. You can mix it up by calling out patterns like “blue circle” or “red square” or by asking your toddler to hop, tiptoe or march to each spot, making it both fun and educational.
27. Homemade Shaped Stamps
Cut shapes from sponges and let toddlers dip them in washable paint to stamp patterns onto paper. This simple activity is great for encouraging creativity, shape recognition and color exploration. You can name the shapes together as they stamp, mix colors to see what new ones they create or even try making simple scenes like a garden or a city.
28. Toddler Art Gallery
Create a mini art gallery by taping butcher paper to the walls and letting your toddler paint or draw large-scale masterpieces. Walk through the gallery together to admire their creations.
29. Indoor Parachute Play
Use a large sheet or lightweight blanket as a parachute. Gently lift and lower it together, placing soft toys underneath to make them bounce. This activity encourages teamwork, coordination and shared laughter. You can add songs or counting as you lift and lower the parachute or challenge your toddler to predict where the toys will land. It is a simple way to build motor skills while creating joyful, active play indoors.
30. DIY Slide
Stack couch cushions or a sturdy mattress at a slight angle to create a safe, soft indoor slide. Supervise and let toddlers practice climbing and sliding. This activity helps build balance, strength and confidence while offering a fun way to burn energy indoors. You can place pillows or blankets at the bottom for a gentle landing and cheer them on as they play.
31. Puzzle Piece Hunt
Hide puzzle pieces around a room and help toddlers find and assemble them. You can offer hints, name colors or shapes on the pieces or turn it into a fun story about finding hidden treasure. This promotes problem-solving and attention to detail.
32. Indoor Mail Carrier
Give your toddler envelopes or cards to deliver to different stuffed animals or family members around the house. Encourage them to knock and say hello. You can add simple messages or drawings inside the envelopes or set up a small mailbox to make it feel even more special.
33. Cardboard City Building
Gather empty boxes of various sizes and help your toddler build a cardboard city. Let them decorate the buildings with crayons, stickers and paper cutouts. Encourage them to add doors, windows, roads and signs or create parks and bridges using other craft supplies. This open-ended activity sparks creativity, spatial awareness and storytelling as they imagine who or what lives in their city.
34. Animal Movement Game
Call out animals and encourage toddlers to move like them, such as slithering like a snake or hopping like a bunny. You can add music to turn it into an animal dance party! This builds imagination and gross motor skills.
35. Laundry Basket Boat Adventure
Place a large laundry basket on a blanket and let your toddler climb inside for a pretend boat ride. Gently tug the blanket to slide them along the floor and encourage them to look out for imaginary sea creatures.
36. Rainbow Light Show
Shine light through coloured scarves or a toy prism onto the wall or ceiling. Let your baby watch the changing patterns and colors. This simple activity provides gentle visual stimulation and encourages tracking skills as your baby follows the light.
37. Water Mat Play
Use a sealed water mat or create one with a zipped bag of water and floating shapes. Place it on the floor and let your infant press and pat to see the shapes move.
38. Soft Scarf Peekaboo
Use lightweight scarves for gentle peekaboo play. Let the scarf float down over your infant’s face or hands, encouraging giggles and sensory exploration. You can vary the game by hiding toys under the scarf or letting your baby grasp and wave it to explore cause and effect.
39. Soft Ball Rolling
Roll a soft ball gently back and forth between you and your baby during tummy time, this simple game helps strengthen neck, shoulder and arm muscles while supporting motor skill development. You can also add soft commentary or sing a song as you play to keep your baby engaged and make the experience more interactive.
Tip: Try using balls with different textures or gentle sounds, like a soft rattle inside, to stimulate for sensory play.
40. Crinkle Paper Play
Offer clean, safe crinkle paper for your infant to squeeze and explore. The sound and feel will fascinate them.
41. Window Rain Watch
Sit with your infant or toddler near a window and watch the raindrops slide down the glass. Talk about the patterns and point out big and small drops to build visual tracking and language skills. You can each pick a drop and watch them “race” each other down the window!
42. DIY Rainstick Craft
Have your toddler help you fill a paper towel tube with some beads. You can seal the ends of a DIY rainstick craft by covering each end of the paper towel tube with sturdy material like parchment paper, wax paper or a small piece of cardboard. Slowly tilt the tube to create a soft rain-like sound that fascinates infants and toddlers.
43. Easy Rainy Day Baking: Banana Oat Cookies
Try a simple baking activity with your toddler. In a bowl, mash 2 ripe bananas and mix with 1 cup of quick oats. Add a small handful of raisins or chocolate chips if you like. Spoon small portions onto a lined baking sheet and flatten slightly. Bake at 175°C (350°F) for about 12 minutes. Let cool and enjoy a soft, naturally sweet treat together. Toddlers can help with mashing the bananas using a fork, stirring the oats and sprinkling in the raisins or chocolate chips. They can also help spoon the mixture onto the baking sheet with assistance, making this a fun hands-on experience.
44. Rainy Day Scrapbooking Fun
Create a simple scrapbook with your toddler using construction paper or a small notebook. Provide stickers, cut-out shapes, washi tape and crayons. Help your toddler stick, colour and decorate pages with themes like raindrops, rainbows and puddles. You can add a date or a short note about the day to turn it into a rainy day memory book.
45. Paper Plate Raindrop Mobile
Give your toddler a paper plate as a base. Help them paint or colour it blue or gray. Cut out simple raindrop shapes from blue paper and let your toddler decorate them with stickers or scribbles. Attach the raindrops to the plate using yarn or string and hang it up as a cheerful rainy day mobile.
46. Virtual Museum or Zoo Tour
Take advantage of free virtual tours offered by many museums and zoos. Sit with your toddler and explore animal enclosures, aquariums or art exhibits on a tablet or computer. Point out favorite animals or colours and talk about what you see. Pause to make animal sounds or draw what you explored afterwards for added fun.
47. Infant Pedaling Play
Lay your infant on their back on a soft mat. Gently hold and move their legs in a pedaling motion, like riding a tiny bicycle. This activity encourages body awareness, coordination and can be calming. Sing a gentle song or rhyme as you pedal their legs to add fun and rhythm.
48. Watercolour Rain Art
Let toddlers paint on thick paper with washable markers or watercolours. Then, use a spray bottle of water to create a rainy, drippy effect on their art. Point out the different sized drops as they fall to help them practice their tracking skills, or name all the different colours to improve language skills!
49. Outdoor Puddle Jumping
When it is safe and warm enough, dress your toddler in rain boots and a waterproof coat and let them explore shallow puddles outside. Encourage gentle splashing and jumping, turning the wet weather into a fun adventure.
50. Mirror Movement Game
Place an unbreakable mirror at your baby’s or toddler’s level and sit beside them. Make funny faces, wave your hands or gently sway side to side and encourage your child to copy your movements or explore their own reflection. This activity helps build self-awareness, social connection and coordination while sparking curiosity about their own image. You can add a soft song or rhyme to make it even more fun and interactive.
With these creative ideas, your rainy day toolkit will be full of ways to keep children entertained and engaged. These activities nurture imagination, coordination and connection. Try simple science experiments using household items, or encourage artistic expression with drawing, painting or crafting. With a little creativity, any rainy day can become a chance for meaningful play and shared memories.
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