Springtime can mean a lot of rainy days in Northeast Ohio—and having to keep preschoolers entertained during these windows of time. Fortunately, you can find plenty of fun indoor activities for preschoolers in the area when the rain falls. 

#1: Making Your Own Playdough

The good news is that it’s easier than you might think to make your own playdough with five different recipes that use marshmallows, baking soda, Kool-Aid, Jell-O, or cornstarch: all ingredients you often have at home. When you go down a route where the main ingredient doesn’t provide color, a few drops of food coloring will do the trick. 

While you’re making playdough, you can introduce math concepts as you measure. From there, your preschoolers can use their imagination and creativity (and fine motor skills) to use the playdough in open ended ways. 

#2: Playing Indoor Hopscotch

Although you might consider hopscotch to be an outdoor game, you can play it inside pretty easily. You can use painter’s tape to create the squares and numbers on the floor or paint numbers on pieces of cardboard. As you number the squares, have your preschoolers participate because they can practice number recognition and counting. Then, your children can play the game just as they would outdoors. 

#3: Holding a Dance Party

When your youngsters are feeling cooped up with a whole bunch of extra energy, the dance party can come to the rescue! You can play different songs to let them move to the beat. This includes the classic Shake Your Sillies Out.

Plus, it’s easy to turn the dance party into a game of freeze. Let your children know that, when you stop the song, everyone needs to stop dancing and to freeze until the music starts up again. Besides being fun—often encouraging a case of the giggles—freeze dancing can strengthen large muscle groups while your child learns to follow instructions.

#4: Hunting Colors

You can write the names of colors in the appropriate hue (for example, the word ‘orange’ written in orange) and encourage your preschoolers to find items in the house of that color. This can help them to begin to recognize the words associated with each one. If you make a list of several colors and want to set up a race between two or more children, they can read the color, find something of that hue, and give it to you. They can check the color off the list and then go onto the next one. 

Or, if you want to simplify the game, you can call out a color and set your preschoolers off to find objects with that shade. 

Horizon Education Centers: Preschool Program

At Horizon, we offer a creative preschool curriculum to keep children entertained (rain or shine). We have a kindergarten readiness focus as we help preschoolers develop their literacy skills, verbal and social skills, and numbers and letters recognition. We also conduct developmental screenings. Learn more about our preschool program and its benefits!