Rainy day activities for kids: 10 ideas, screen and kitchen

For parents

Raining again? Here's the whole afternoon

Ten indoor ideas for children of about 4 to 10. Five are messy experiments you'd rather not do in your kitchen, so they happen on screen. Five are real ones for the kitchen table, with things from the cupboard. Each links to its own step-by-step page.

Play in your browser The kitchen ideas

Ages 4 to 10
Cupboard ingredients
With an adult for the real ones

Painted illustration of a parent and child at a kitchen table watching baking soda fizz up pink, with paints and a rainbow drawing, rain on the window.

How to use this list

Mix them. Start with one on screen while you clear the table, then do a real one together. Or pair them up: the cola geyser on screen, then a baking soda volcano in a tray. Ask whether the real thing will behave like the game, then find out.

Five on screen: the mess stays in the tablet

Painted illustration of the painter peering through a magnifying glass at bread and a strawberry with fuzzy mould spots, beside a calendar with three days crossed off.

Grow mould in three days

Drop ice cream, fruit or ketchup on the paper and tap Wait 3 days. Mould colonies bloom, the food dries and the flies arrive. No smell, no bin.

Painted illustration of a cola bottle on the grass shooting up a tall fountain of foam as mints drop in, the painter in goggles laughing beside it.

A cola geyser on the carpet

In the Science tab, set off cola and mints. A fountain shoots up and rains sticky brown drops all round. If the ants are out, they come for the sugar.

Painted illustration of a bottle on a tray pouring out a fat foam snake in pink, yellow, blue and white stripes, the painter in goggles leaning back, amazed.

Elephant toothpaste

A fat, stripy snake of foam pushes out of the bottle and piles up on the paper, and the bottle's spot gets warm. The real version needs an adult; this one doesn't.

Painted illustration of the painter pouring purple red cabbage juice into a row of glasses that go from pink through purple and blue to green, with a lemon and baking soda.

Paint on red cabbage paper

Dip the whole sheet in red cabbage juice, then paint with vinegar (pink) and dish soap or baking soda (blue to green). The colours follow the real cabbage chart.

Painted illustration of the painter scratching through black paint with a wooden stick to reveal a rainbow rocket, planets and stars.

Scratch art

Crayon a rainbow, paint dark paint over it, let it dry, then scratch a drawing through with a toothpick (in the full toolbox). The real one works with crayons and poster paint too.

Five in the kitchen: real, and with an adult

Painted illustration of the painter touching a dish of milk with a soapy cotton bud while red, blue, yellow and green food colouring swirls outwards.

Magic milk

Milk on a plate, a few drops of food colouring, then a cotton bud dipped in dish soap. The colours burst away and swirl. About ten minutes, hardly any mess.

Painted illustration of the painter pouring red vinegar onto a heap of baking soda on a tray, which fizzes up into pink foam.

A baking soda volcano

A heap of baking soda in a tray, then vinegar with a drop of food colouring. It fizzes up into coloured foam. Do it in a tray and keep the vinegar away from eyes.

Painted illustration of the painter dripping blue, pink and yellow paint onto a salt-covered glue star and flower on dark card, the colour spreading along the salt.

Salt painting

Draw with white glue, cover it with salt, shake off the rest and touch the lines with watercolour. The colour races along the salt. Let it dry flat overnight.

Painted illustration of paper strips and a coffee filter in glasses of water, where black marker dots have spread into blue, pink and yellow bands, watched by the painter.

Find the colours in a black pen

A dot of washable black felt-tip on a coffee filter, the tip of the paper in a little water, and the black slowly splits into other colours as the water climbs.

Painted illustration of the painter spraying water on cress sprouting in a heart shape on damp kitchen paper, with a seed packet and seeds.

Start a cress garden

Cress seeds on damp kitchen paper or cotton wool, kept damp. The rain will have stopped long before you can snip it, but it sprouts within days, which makes a good thing to check each morning.

What can kids do on a rainy day at home?

Mix a little screen time with real kitchen experiments: magic milk, a baking soda volcano, salt painting, finding the colours in a black pen and starting cress all use things most kitchens already have.

Which of these is least messy?

Magic milk and the black pen colours are the tidiest. Salt painting and the volcano need a tray. The messiest ones, like the cola geyser and mould, are the on-screen ones.

Which ideas suit a 4-year-old?

Magic milk, salt painting and starting cress work well with little ones, with you doing the pouring. On screen, everything on the list works for any age.

Are the on-screen ones free?

The mould, the cola geyser, elephant toothpaste and red cabbage paper are all in the free part. Scratch art needs the toothpick, which is in the full toolbox.

Start with the one on screen

It's already on the tablet. No download, no account.

Play in your browser All parent questions