Indoor Picnic

• Take out your picnic basket and settle in to enjoy the rainy day.Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
  
  When it's too rainy to go outside, pull out a blanket and enjoy a picnic inside. Kids can help you prepare the snacks, such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fresh fruit and crackers, and juice. Children can arrange plates and napkins, and when the setup is finished, everyone can sit down to enjoy a rainy day picnic.
  
  

Puppet Time

• If your kids have a puppet theater, a rainy day can be a good time for a performance. Pull out all of the puppets and take turns putting on shows. Set up chairs in front of the theater for a more formal feel. If you do not have a puppet theater or puppets, use this time to get creative. Give each child a brown paper bag and some crayons. Kids can decorate the bags and turn them into puppets.
  
  

Go on a House Hunt

• A house hunting game is very similar to a scavenger hunt; however, with the house hunt, kids are confined to specific areas of the house when they are searching for items. Prepare a list of items for kids to find in your house and give a copy of the list to each child. For younger children, you can tell them a shorter list of items to locate.
  
  Time this activity by using a stop watch; the child who finds the most items in 15 minutes -- or another time frame of your choosing -- will win. Or the kids can keep hunting until one player finds all of the listed items, and no time limit will be needed.
  
  

Music Time

• For this rainy day activity, you will need to locate an assortment of items in your house that can be used as musical instruments. Suggested items include whistles, pots, bells, spoons, and bicycle horns. If you have a supply of actual musical instruments such as drums, triangles, or tambourines, you can use those as well. The children can spend the afternoon playing with their instruments and creating an assortment of music. To organize a musical game, get each child to use as many instruments at one time as she can. Or hold a competition to see who can invent the best song.