Activities for pre-school toddlers on rainy days.

A few suggestions for things to occupy your inquisitive child on rainy days that doesn't involve TV! (Though of course some kids will love to go out in the rain too so don't discount that as an option!)

FIRSTLY NON MESSY IDEAS:

Bead necklaces

Use penne pasta or other similar items with a hole in, e.g. cheerios / fruit loops (for a nice edible necklace), cut up straws etc. Get your child to thread the pasta etc onto a shoelace, or alternatively, get them to decorate the pasta first (this can get messy if you let it involve glue etc!) and then thread it.

Sorting out mummy's cupboards.

If you are anything like me you'll have a kitchen cupboard full of stuff you never get round to sorting through. Kids love getting involved in kitchen things, especially if it is something like the "baking cupboard" filled with chocolate toppings, glace cherries etc. They can try things as well as help you clean and sort.

Sorting out their toy box

As above, but their toys and books. You might like to find a few boxes and put similar things together.

Going shopping.

We've all done it. But why not get the child to write the shopping list before you go (it will be a scribble but they love getting involved.) And help you unpack at the end. Take your time in the shop, getting the child to look for things. You could always (with a little advance preparation) make flashcards' of things you need to buy. You could do this by either copying the small gif files off a home shopping website and pasting these onto a sheet, or keep cut outs of packets of things you buy frequently (or photocopied pictures of them). Armed like this you could play a kind of snap game where they have to spot the things you buy most often and tick them off.

Why not play I spy in the shop (with pre-schoolers this is more you describe what you see and they have to guess what it is rather than using letters- just make the descriptions more and more

Photograph albums / scrap booking

My child loves poring through photograph albums and she now has her own to which she adds photos.

If you have a digital camera, why not allow the child to take his/her own photos and then let her look at them all on the computer?

Computer / internet.

And while we're thinking of home shopping to get pictures, don't forget there is a whole wealth of children's sites out there on the internet packed with fun and games for either printing

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