Outdoor Rainy Day Activities For Toddlers

Does anyone else hate being stuck indoors all day when its raining? To be honest, as much as I love a good old duvet day every now and then, nothing beats a bit of fresh air. Rain or shine. Our little family always tries to embrace the weather and go out as much as we can, regardless of the conditions. Now, the weather has been ever so slightly bi polar recently, what with the rain, sleet, snow, wind and stupidly hot summer like days all in the space of a few days. This making planning anything a little tricky.

The last few days however have been ever so wet. So, I thought I’d compile a list of some of the activities I do with Molly. Yes they are all outside, in the rain. Just stick your tiny human in a puddle suit and some wellies and you’re good to go!

Playing With Chalk

Did you know you can sue chalk when it’s raining? Grab yourself some sidewalk chalk, ( we got ours from our local Asda ) and let your kids loose. This activity is great because chalk will just wash away, not leaving any permanent damage. Drawing in the rain is so much fun. The chalk is so much more vibrant then when its dry. Also if you use several colours in the same space, the rain merges them together which looks really pretty. This is the perfect activity for your little ones to get really creative and have fun!

Chalk Puddles

If your garden gets decent puddles in the rain, grate some chalk and pour it into the puddle. Get your kids to mix the chalk into the puddle by jumping and splashing around. You can have different coloured puddles dotted around your garden! Our back garden isn’t a decent puddle spot. So, I took a slightly different approach. We coloured in 3 of out paving slabs in different coloures and the rain made mini puddles. I managed to incorporate some colour recognition by saying the name of the colour as she went from slab to slab. Then, I told her to go to the blue one, and she did! Possibly a fluke, who knows!

Musical Pots and Pans

This activity is great even when its not raining! However, it is so much more fun when it’s pouring down with rain. The rain clinks on the metal and makes its own music. Molly spent a decent amount of time smashing to pits and pans with her wooden spoon. When it really started to pour, we took a little brake/shelter in the arched seating area of the garden, and we could hear the rain hitting the pots and pans, which Molly found amusing.

Water Play

What else do you do when you’ve got water falling from the sky? This one was actually unintentional and completely led by Molly. Once she was done playing music with the pots and pans, she turned over one of the bowels and started to mix. I grabbed some water from the hose pipe and popped it in the bowel and she automatically started to pick grass, and daisies and pop them in, mixing as she went. She sat for a good while, just mixing and talking to herself. Even having a little taste test along the way! She then found a large puddle of water on the top of her sandpit, and proceeded to splash about, followed by “uh oh” as she showed me her wet hand!

Exploring Nature

Whenever we are in the garden, Molly is always pointing at things. Leaves, flowers, birds. She is also one for collecting stones. There is a bush in the garden that produces little white flowers, and every time we go outside Molly has to pick one and sniff it. She has also learnt how to blow the fluffy dandelion flowers and its the cutest thing ever!! Liam’s mum has a lot of herbs in the garden, so it was a really sensory experience going around, and smelling, touching and tasting all the herbs. Turns out she likes fresh chive!

Gardening

Over the last few weeks, spending more and more time in the garden with Molly, I have noticed how much she loves to help and and do what we do. She has seen Liam’s dad water the plants, so despite the fact it was pissing down with rain, she decided she would grab her little watering can and give them an extra drink. We really want to get her a proper little gardening set so she can help out over the summer. Also, I am also researching ideas and reading posts on how to build a mud kitchen. I am SO excited to do this because I feel she would LOVE it!

We watched a bee for about 5 minutes, and Molly was going “Buzzzzzzz” the entire time whilst pointing at it and trying to follow it. Overall we had a lovely hour or so outside in the pouring rain. It just proves that you can still enjoy the beauty and fun of nature in all weather conditions. If you haven’t got a puddle suit for your little one, most supermarkets have them at the moment. We got ours from Boots and I purposely got a size bigger that what Molly is currently in so it would last a little longer.

There are so many other things that you could do in the rain, that I haven’t listed here. You could also;

Make mud pies

Paint with Mud

Make Boats out of leaves

Water small world play

Make a Homemade rain gauge

I hope this has given you a few ideas of fun things you can do in the rain, we might as well make the most of it!

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