What to do with the kids on rainy days in the school hols - we need your ideas!

[rachel(mumsnet)]

Scottish schools are breaking up for the summer hols from Monday and BBC Radio Scotland have asked us to us come up with some ideas of what to do with the kids.

It's cold and wet in Scotland right now and, for many parents, the idea of eight or nine school-less weeks is challenging. Can you help? It's not so much about where to go, but more things to do in the house and out and about; How to survive even if the weather prevents you from hitting the beach or local paddling pool...

Post your ideas and tips here and big thanks in advance for your help.
MNHQ

Possibly not for everyone but, rainy days here mean pom poms, dd gathers leftover balls of wool, I cut out circles from cereal packets, she strangles herself with yarn winds yarn round the circles.

She also grabs any leftover fabric and makes collages with them (my chances for attempting quilting are zilch in this house).

rain walk, welly walk
museum
art gallery
make up a play and perform it
build a tent - ghost stories
make up stories and make a book with illustrations
playdough
painting
scrap books
buy an usbourne book entititled 'what shall I do today?' Follow the instructions.
Go to an indoor playcentre
swimming in an outdoor pool
baking - icing biscuits
shopping
cleaning

I LOVE this thread. Shall be printing off some of these ideas and putting them on my fridge for emergencies.
I've already started planning ahead.
I have a big black binliner in my kitchen and am throwing anything suitable for arts and crafts instead of putting them in my recycle bin - cereal boxes, egg cartons, plastic trays, loo roll tubes, kitchen towel tubes etc etc. On a rainy day we get the lot out with loads of paint, glitter, tissue paper, glue, pens and the girls have a great time creating loads of stuff. Last year we even made an underwater scene >

agree with foxythesnowfox too re: "check with the local council for any activities laid on. Ours do weekly sports programmes and are really affordable. Same with local libraries and museums" - We also do this and there's some fab stuff when you hunt them down.

Painting/crafting/drawing/crayoning
Junk modelling
Play dough
Make pastry models and paint them next day
Makes tents with blankets
Play shops
Baking
Computer - cbeebies web site etc
Get kids to help with housework
Stories
Playdates/sleepovers
Indoor play centres
Board games/jigsaws
Start making xmas cards
Put rain coats on and go out anyway
Face painting

haven't read through, so apols if already mentioned - make a film, using camcorder, can work with varying ages as they can haev increasing amounts of control

You are all so imaginative. I'm really impressed. I want to print out the whole thread.

My only contribution is that we have a box. The children write activities down on scraps of paper. Then, when we're bored, we do a lucky dip. Whatever's on the slip of paper, we do it.

Today has been a "No, YOU take them out" sort of day.
Peace !

You give them a bin bag and ask them to sort through their toys, putting any they no longer play with in the bag. This way they discover toys they've not played with for ages, making the task last hours instead of minutes, and at the end of it you should have a bag full of toys to give to charity!

geo - caching! with rain coats

You tube is great for whiling away an hour or so on a wet afternoon (under close supervision of course!)
My 2 boys have recently enjoyed The Muppets, the old Charly Says info films, a load of silly symphonies and a load of Pokeman characters dancing to Crazy Frog song....do a little research first as to which videos are suitable for a family audience IYKWIM"

make a rain stick.

last week we went to an olde-fashioned traditional sweet shop and stocked up on sherbert fountains, toffee bon-bons, candy sticks, lemonade crystals, sherbert etc etc and came home and watched Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory

Not one for a regular occurence (as I was bouncing off the walls after the cola-bottles) but as a one off it was great fun.

I didn't know schools in Scotland had such long holidays. Is it really 8/9 weeks?

Anyway, dd and I have a book called 'Things to do with Mum' which has a number of ideas. Sorry have to go - will be beack hopefully

We finish tomorrow for 8 and a half weeks (NI). I work in a school

If you have rackets and a soft ball:

Go to your local leisure centre and play some form of tennis on a squash court (if it's anything like our one they won't be booked up and you can get away with not paying!).

If you have rackets and a soft ball:

Go to your local leisure centre and play some form of tennis on a squash court (if it's anything like our one they won't be booked up and you can get away with not paying!).

If out at park or beach, encourage kids to collect bits and pieces, stones twigs, pebbles etc, then design/make a 'mouse/fairy house. If this is made in garden can take steps further by writing notes, drawing pictures etc to said creatures. If lucky said creatures may leave gifts behind. Needn't be expensive, 'magic invisible fairy dust' went down very well!!

Take out bath toys, make paperboats etc to float in puddles on rainy days

Buy cheap wetsuits from Tesco etc to ensure constant use of paddling pool whatever the weather.

I find it hard to believe there are all these parents with school age children who find it 'challenging' to have them at home for 7 weeks.

How did they manage with pre schoolers, for heaven's sake.

1. Bake or cook something simple for tea
2. Play board games, organise a competition with friends
3. Get kids to organise a litter pick in their local park
4. Take part in local library reading scheme
5. Rent fun dvd and make popcorn

1. Tell them to stop moaning and find something to do

sheesh

Our local swimming pools have free sessions for children in teh hols.

There's LOADS for children to do. This is not a challenging problem

lol pointy! I know what you mean but it's hard when you have one at full-time school and one or more not (roll on September I say)

My top tip is arrange for your dc friends to come and play, have lunch etc (and vice versa) for as many days of the week as possible.

Agree with Pointy.

Loads of families seem to manage to spend lots of time together without going insane, spending a fortune or micro-managing.

Home ed families do it all the time.

Hide things, then find them a few days later - we have some foam dinosaur jigsaw puzzles, and my 2 (6 and 4) love to hide them around the house. If we leave it a couple of days they forget where they are so have enormous fun finding them.

yoga - really - ds is still abit manic for this but dd loves copying me. We also build obstacle courses from furniture/cushions

Making people out of catalogues - fatface/joe browns/other junk send through catalogues that show clothes without people in them - dd loves putting together outfits and drawing faces/feet onto them.

button box- maybe it's because they've inherited my anal retentivness but both of mine adore sorting through the 5 generation old button box

play a game where you take it in turns to blind fold each other then pne person has to feed random things to the other, eg; square of jelly, piece of banana etc and the other has to guess what it is.

Sew clothes for dolls.

Get kids to make up dnace rountines and perform them for you.