45 things to do with children on a rainy day

Burning energy indoors (1-12)

1. Pillow path — cushions across the floor as stepping stones, the ground is lava. 2. Balloon volleyball over a string tied between two chairs. 3. Indoor obstacle course: under the table, around the chair, hop to the door. 4. Dance competition to film songs, one round each, everyone judges.

5. Statue — music stops, everyone freezes. 6. Langdi (hopping tag) in a corridor. 7. Simon says, with the child as leader. 8. Bowling with plastic bottles and a soft ball. 9. Sock basketball into a bucket, one step further back each round.

10. Treasure hunt with written clues around the house. 11. Newspaper hockey with rolled-up bats and a paper ball. 12. Wall-sit and plank competitions for older children — surprisingly popular, and it exhausts them.

Making things (13-24)

13. Paper boats to float in a bucket, then in the puddle outside. 14. Paper planes with a distance contest. 15. Cardboard-box house, with windows cut out and doors that open. 16. Homemade playdough: two cups flour, one cup salt, water, a spoon of oil, food colour.

17. Rangoli with rice flour on the floor, or chalk on a tile. 18. Collage from old magazines and newspapers. 19. Toilet-roll binoculars, telephones and puppets. 20. Bookmarks from card, decorated and given as presents.

21. Greeting cards for the next birthday in the family. 22. A family newspaper — interviews with grandparents, weather report, jokes page. 23. Bead or macaroni jewellery on thread. 24. Painting with vegetables cut into stamps — okra makes a flower, potato makes anything.

Kitchen projects (25-32)

25. Rolling rotis, however misshapen — children take this seriously. 26. Decorating dosas or parathas with vegetable faces. 27. Sandwich assembly line, everyone makes their own. 28. Lemonade or nimbu pani, measured and mixed by the child.

29. Sprouting moong in a wet cloth, checked twice a day for a week. 30. Growing coriander or methi in a pot from kitchen seeds. 31. Making sheera or a simple laddoo, with an adult on the stove. 32. Tasting game: blindfolded, guess the spice by smell.

Quiet things (33-40)

33. Reading together on a mattress with a torch and a sheet tent. 34. Audiobooks or a story podcast while they draw. 35. Board games: ludo, snakes and ladders, carrom, chess. 36. Card games: memory pairs, snap, donkey.

37. Jigsaw puzzles, upgraded a level each year. 38. Drawing challenge: one person draws a shape, the other turns it into something. 39. Letter to a cousin or grandparent, posted properly. 40. Photo albums — old ones, with grandparents narrating who everyone was.

Monsoon-specific (41-45)

41. Watch the rain properly from a balcony or window with chai and something fried — the oldest Indian monsoon activity there is.

42. Puddle boats: race paper boats down the water at the gate, under supervision, then wash hands thoroughly — see our monsoon illness guide for why.

43. A rain gauge from a cut plastic bottle, measured and recorded each day of the week.

44. Cloud watching between showers, naming shapes.

45. Learn a monsoon song or a rain raga, and sing it badly together.

Frequently asked questions

Q: My child says all of this is boring and wants the tablet. — Expect a difficult first hour, and expect boredom to be the thing that eventually produces play. Sit with them for the first ten minutes of an activity; most children continue on their own once started.

Q: We have a very small flat. — Almost everything above works in one room. Space matters far less than a few open-ended objects and an adult who joins in briefly.

Q: Should I let them play in the rain? — Warm rain, clean water, supervised, with a proper wash and dry afterwards is fine and is one of the pleasures of an Indian childhood. Avoid stagnant and flood water entirely, which carries real infection risk.

Q: How do I stop the mess taking over? — One activity out at a time, a sheet or newspaper down before anything wet, and the rule that the current thing is put away before the next comes out. Children accept this far better when it is the routine rather than an argument.