Kids like to play outside and they may be quite wild in case they have to stay home in a rainy day. Finding ways to entertain them can be challenging, especially when there are few rainy days in a row. Therefore, we collected few ideas that can help you entertain the kids.
Playdate with friends
Visiting friends that have kids or inviting them to join you for a playdate at your home is a good way to entertain the children. It also provides you an opportunity to have a chat with your friends. You can make some cookies or a snack or just order pizza to have enough energy during the afternoon. Children will play together, while the adults can talk and have a little relaxation as well. You still need to keep an eye on the kids, but it is more fun than staying full day alone at home.
Swimming pool
Going to the swimming pool is another good opportunity to entertain the kids during rainy days. Just pick a pool nearby that has a section for kids or at least pool with warmer water where they can spend few hours without getting sick.
Inviting other friends with kids to join you will ensure good company for you and the children and will also provide extra eyes watching after them.
Indoor playground
Indoor playgrounds, especially the big ones with lots of attractions, slides, trampolines, etc. are a great place where kids can spend hours, especially during rainy days when playing outside is not an option.
Unfortunately, during weekends and bad weather conditions, these playgrounds are often quite crowded. If you are going there in such days, prepare yourself for the noise, the crowd and keep an eye on your kids to ensure they are safe.
Museum
Depending on the age of your children, museums can be an excellent place to spend few hours and see something interesting. They are open also during the weekends and often there are days when entrance fees are symbolic. If you are lucky, you may enter almost for free. Even better, there are some museums like the Deutsches Museum in Munich which has its own playground area.
Theater and cinema
Taking the children to theater or cinema is another easy way to keep them entertained for a whole afternoon. Just find a performance in the neighborhood that is suitable for the age of your kids, dress up and go. You may consider booking the tickets in advance to avoid situations where you arrive and everything is sold out. Often you can buy tickets online or at least call the theater to confirm that there are free places. With the cinema there are not such issues. You can just go to your favorite cinema hall.
Circus
If you have a circus in town, that’s an awesome place to go with the kids, especially when the weather outside is cold or rainy. We can assure you, children love the circus.
Sport shop
You may be surprised how much fun can have the kids in a big sport shop. Very often you will find in such shops all kind of sport equipment that you not only can look, but you can also try. This may include trampolines, balls, bikes, rollers, roll skates as well as table tennis, bows and many more. You will be surprised how creative can be the kids in finding way to entertain themselves among the sports equipment offered in the shop.
The best thing is that all this usually comes for free unless your kids fall in love with some of the items sold in the shop (which often happens).
Furniture stores
Another place where you can entertain small children for free are the furniture stores. You you go to IKEA or any of the big furniture stores. They often have place for entertaining the kids where you can leave them for 1 hour until you are shopping around.
Even if the kids’ corner is full, you can still take your children for a tour around the shop. Shopping cart riding can be fun for them. Visiting the section for kids’ furniture is also good idea, especially if they have these double beds with a slide from the second floor or beds looking like a car or a firetruck. Same is valid with the section with toys and other things that children can try and play with.
Library
You can use the opportunity to visit the library with the kids during a rainy day. Apart from borrowing books, some libraries organize regularly story telling events. If you are lucky, you may join one of these. Looking around and checking new books can be quite a lot of fun, especially for the smaller children. All this you can usually do also if you don’t have a library card. You will need it only if you want to borrow some books.
Restaurant
Visiting a restaurant for dinner or lunch may be another opportunity to bring children out and do something different, especially if you are not eating out regularly with them. They can try some new food, get a tasty desert and look what is going on around them. Many restaurants may offer the small ones colorful pencils for drawing or coloring pictures, children menu or just a small pack of jelly bears. These may be small things, but make the children happy. Some pizza, Japanese and other restaurants are having open kitchen where customers can see how their food is cooked. Depending how attractive and creative are the cooks, children may have quite a lot of fun watching them.
Music, dancing, sport or creativity lessons
Another option for having fun is to visit some of the lessons for kids offered by various companies and organizations in the neighborhood. Simple search online will show you a lot of opportunities. Some of them are for free, others require a small fee for participation. In most of the cases you have an opportunity for a demo lesson where your kids can try the activities. If you really like them, you may even consider coming regularly. In any case your kids will have some fun.
Conferences, exhibitions, markets and other occasional events
In big cities there are always interesting events where you can take also your kids. You just need to search in internet what events are planned in your area and choose one that best suits you. You can bring your kids events that are considered for adults like a job fair for example. They may not a get a job, but for sure will have an interesting day and come home with few souvenirs.
If you have other good ideas where to go with the kids during rainy days, let us know. we will gladly document them here.
In case you live in Munich, feel free to check our recommendations for indoor places that we found around.
