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

Write things to do on bits of paper (eg play monopoly; Hama beads; tidy dressign table; make balloon-powered model car; do 200-pc jigsaw; anything else you can think of that you never do).

Then you pull one out of the hat and you have to do it.

Lol I'll second CF - what's wrong with playing in the rain with your wellies on . Baking is always a good one.

A rainy spell is perfect socialing weather for us. When it's sunny I like to be free of social commitments so, we can head off to the park/drive to the beach etc if the mood takes us without much preparation.

If a week of cool, rainy weather is forecast, I phone round my ds's friends and arrange a few playdates.

IME if there is a guest child or two in the house, rainy day boredom is much less of an issue. My 8 year old usually has a fab time trashing the housemaking a den inside his bedroom with his guest. Things are a bit different with my 14 year old and his guest of course - they mainly play guitar or go on the xbox.

Even better is when one of the guests parents reciprocate and invite my son(s) back to their house. Visiting friends is my ds's ideal rainy day activity.

Buy a load of wooden pegs and let them make peg dolls ,all they need is a felt tip to draw the faces and some material scraps for the clothes.

Bug hunts.

Tea partys in the garden.

Go to the diy store and nick take lots of wallpaper smaples and let them make a dolls house or a mosiac from the wallpaper.

Find pebbles or buy a packet for a pound and make paperweights them give them everyone for xmas . Mwahahahahaha.

Let them make a newspaper.

Cornflour mine love this but do it outside ... Get a pack of cornflour mix it with water so it's gloopy but not runny add green food colouring and watch them go great for slime at halloween too.

Library --They have loads on and they have dvd's for a pound.

Park.

Dogwalks and let them bath the dog.

Turn the TV off cos kids tv is rubbish repeats .

Have a disco.

Buy a bottle of cheap bubble bath and some cheap shaving foam and stick them in the bath for an hour (be warned the bathroom will look like an explosion at a boot's the chemist)

Stock up on craft stuff from the poundshop and let them do this.

Playdates.

If they argue make them hug each other --trust me they hate this.

Facepaints thats at least an hours entertanment.

Ohhh get some huge boxes they will stay quiet for ages .

Feign a headache and send them to their Grans

great ideas, sorry I haven't read all of this thread yet, but those of you with just the one DC - do you find you have to work harder at it, especially setting up playdates with friends? DS is 8 and I actually think he will miss being at school and the whole social side.

There are a couple of other threads too somewhere in other subjects and chat.

Would it be possible to put all 3 under a temporary heading like the Xmas one as this so good and I'm bound to loose it when it sinks to the bottom. If school holidays had it's own heading it would be great to find it quickly in a moment of desperation.

Pointy those of us who don't live in huge houses with huge gardens,little money, not much access to a car and several dc find these sort of threads very useful. I certainly do.

After a week of rain with 3 dc cooped up in a tiny house I'm pretty sure I will be beyond thinking up imaginative ideas on my own.

DS and I made some painted peg people though he never did get around to putting the faces on his...

Message withdrawn

Some fantastic ideas - will definately try some more...kids had a fantastic day in the garden yesterday with the water pistols, they got soaked but it amused all 3 for 2 hours! I took some fab photos as I'm trying to do a book about things we're doing in the hols as we're not going away this year. Came across this site www.love2read.co.uk If you take lots of photos of things you do with your kids they won't forget and should impress teachers at the beginning of next term!