Rainy days and children sometimes don't mix very well. When you can't let the kids play outside, you can make free or inexpensive toys from items you already have around the house. Mix liberaly with an abundance of childhood imagination to create an unlimited source of entertainment.
Stores. Save all your empty food boxes for for a week or so and you'll soon have a store any aspiring grocer would be proud of. Gluing down the flaps makes cereal boxes, jelly packets etc. look unopened. Clothes, shoes, and toys can all be used as "stock." Paper or plastic bags and real or play money add to the fun.
Paper balls. When the kids keep arguing suggest they throw something at each other! Paper balls are easily scrunched up from torn out magazine pages to make "ammo." When it's time to clean up, stand the waste paper basket in the middle of the room and see who can throw the most in. A rolled up magazine makes a good "bat."
Doctors/Nurses. A roll of white toilet tissue makes this game much more fun as dads, grandparents, teddy bears or dolls are mummified before your eyes. Plastic medicine spoons and cardboard box hospital beds for toys are extra props that make the game last longer.
Tubes. Cardboard tubes from kitchen wrap or foil make instant telescopes for sailors and pirates, or tunnels through which to roll marbles. Babies love to watch things disappear then reappear out of the bottom. Don't leave them alone with the cardboard tube though, because they probably will suck on it.
Boxes. Cardboard boxes must be about the best free toys you can get. Push in the ends of large ones to make tunnels and caves to crawl through. Draw on windows and doors with felt tip pens to make a house, add a flag and portholes for a boat or paper plates for a car or bus steering wheel.
Miniature gardens. Foil trays from pies and prepared foods make great containers for miniature gardens. Children can enjoy hunting around the park or garden for twigs to make trees, moss for a lawn, stones to arrange as a rockery or a waterfall. Keep twigs or stones where you want them with a little blue tack or plasticine. Add toy people or animals and maybe a little water if the container is watertight. This can be a very creative and enjoyable exercise if you have children of very different age groups to entertain. A variation is to use play sand (not builder's sand - it stains everything yellow) to make a beach scene, maybe adding shells, stones and a blue paper sea.
Paper puppets. A picture of anything - colourful bird, clown's face, animal or cartoon character, carefully cut out by an adult and stuck to the top of a strip of card about five inches long and one and a half inches wide becomes a very easily made puppet. These give such pleasure and are so easy to make that you probably will end up with dozens of them. Magazine pictures can be stuck to folded card for theatre set background and wings.
Potato prints. After cutting a potato in half, draw on a simple shape. A triangle, circle or star perhaps. Cut away the rest of the potato, leaving a shape to dip into paint and print onto paper.
Forts. Building a fort must be one of the most memorable parts of childhood as we all seem to recall the bliss of blankets draped over the backs of chairs. Even today's sophisticated kids seem to find the thought much more exciting than just erecting a store-bought plastic play house. The secret is to give structural advice about making the thing stay upright, but let the children do as much as possible themselves. Really large boxes of the type that washing machines and fridges come in can be had for the asking from big appliance stores and are useful for rooms within forts. One of the simplest forts can be made by throwing a large sheet or blanket over a table. Cushions, flashlights, cookies and comics or books all will be needed at the housewarming.
String. Children find a million uses for string, from tying up toy "Bad Guys" to making a washing line for doll's clothes. It can be tied to chair legs to make a jump, dipped into paint and twirled on to paper, plaited, knitted with, made into a parachute or mobile, used as a measuring aid or for learning how to tie shoelaces and bows. It need never linger in the kitchen drawer again.
Sewing cards. Stick a picture on a stiff card or draw a simple duck, car or teddy bear shape. With a large darning needle push holes around the outline of your design about one inch apart. Using brightly colored wool in the needle or a long bootlace, thread in and out of the holes.
Stilts. You need to do a little drilling for this one. Take two strong cans, coffee or clean paint cans are ideal, and drill a hole about one inch from the top on opposite sides of the can. Insert a length of string and knot securely. Check that the handle is at a comfortable length for the child before knotting the other side. These are always very popular, but never leave young children alone with them especially near stairs or steps.
Cafes. Children's tea sets are a handy prop for this game, but a picnic set or microwave cookware is just as good. Giving the server a little notebook and pencil to take orders and making a tall white hat from a cylinder of paper for the chef will add realism. Sit dolls and teddy bears around as well as willing Aunts and Grannies for extra customers.
Playdough. Mix together two cups flour, one cup salt, one cup water, one tablespoon oil and a few drops of food coloring for an easy to make dough that will keep for about three weeks if you wrap it in plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge. All you have to do is knead the mixture well. Divide the mixture up first if you want to make more than one color.
Obstacle course. An obstacle course can turn a rainy day into an adventure. Use whatever you have available. A bench to walk the plank, cushion stepping stones across shark infested seas, through a cardboard box tunnel, up a chair mountain or through a blanket cave. The wilder your imagination the more your children will love it.
Boats. Recycle your empty margarine cartons. Use them as boats for the bath or wading pool. These are so easy even very young children can help to make them. Cut out triangular sail shapes from white or colored paper. Make a small hole at the top and bottom of the sail so you can push through a straw to make a mast. Let the child attach this to the bottom of a clean margarine tub with a lump of blue tack or clay. These boats sail extremely well and even will take a couple of toy people on an exciting cruise.
Capes. Nurses, kings, queens, Batman, Superman - they all need capes or cloaks. Luckily, capes are easy to make by attaching ribbon ties to an piece of fabric the color of your child's favourite caped character. Keep an eye on them though, as anything tied around the neck could be dangerous.
Leaf art. Collect leaves and draw around them. This is fun for little ones and an educational tree identification game for older children. Color in the details with crayons or paints. The leaves could then be stuck onto paper collage style or dipped into paint, then pressed firmly onto paper for a lovely leaf print.
Make a puzzle. Stick a favorite picture on a card and allow to dry with a heavy book on top. Cut into pieces (how many depending on the age of the child) for an almost instant and personal puzzle.
