Last week was rainy, grey, and muggy. Sensory play and pretend play are my two favorite rainy day activities for kids, so I combined the two into this simple, imaginative, low-mess activity!
We use (affiliate link) contact paper a lot in our house – to make sun catchers, wall art, wall mosaics, and to keep pattern blocks in place! This time I kept it very simple: I taped maybe six feet of contact paper to the wall, and handed them ten pieces of construction paper, in a variety of colors. At first, they were making mosaics with the shapes (see above), but soon they branched out, and it turned into several ours of imaginative play that kept all four kids engaged – from the seven-year-old to the baby!
One of the kids got our (affiliate link) washable markers, and they started decorating the pieces. My kids are great only writing on paper, but having washable art supplies still lowers the stress of having them out. Pip squeak markers wash out of everything as far as I can tell – so long as you wash it within a couple days and don’t pre-treat the stain.
I loved all the creatures they made – from traditional people to more abstract creations, and even floating heads.
Then one of the kids noticed that the construction paper pieces work like re-usable stickers. The low tack construction paper is gentle enough that you can pick up the construction paper pieces and move them around for play!
They set up an entire town, and soon their pieces were making their way to various destination, and purchasing items to bring home! Their little people and creatures seem particularly fond of cookies (in all shapes) and blueberries.
This play scape stayed up for several days, and I know we will be making more soon!
What are your favorite rainy day activities for kids?
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
I wish we had more wall space for such fun ideas. J has taken all wall space within his reach to hang his art projects from school.
My kids cover the walls with art, too :)
What a great rainy day idea! Love it when something simple can keep them entertained for hours.
Exactly! It makes such a difference on an otherwise gloomy day!
This post inspired me to buy contact paper. I hope JC is old enough to enjoy it, but if not, he’ll grow.
I think he will enjoy it – you will probably want to use masking tape or painter’s tape to attach it to the wall securely.
It’s bucketing down rain here, so this post is very timely for us! Too bad I still have no idea where to buy contact paper in Australia! :)
Contact paper is called sticky back paper in the UK – maybe in Australia as well? I hope you do find some, because it has provided hours of fun for my kids!
I need to get some more contact paper, we’re out of it right now.
I wish it were carried in more stores – I wound up buying it off of Amazon this last time round because I was having a hard time finding it locally!
Oh, I love seeing your kids’ imagination at work. Having several so close in age must be fun!
The closeness in age makes them excellent built-in playmates :)
What an awesome idea! It looks like they played for hours with that! How long will you keep it up? I’d hate to take it down!
We kept this one up for about a week. They are hard to take down!
Ooh I want to do this! I don’t have contact paper so thanks for the link. We have tons of construction paper so I’m almost there :)
It was a huge hit with my kids!
We’ve only tried this once! I can’t believe it- I keep forgetting to buy more contact paper, but I think this will be a great hot week to do this again!
It’s always a hit at our house – in all the variations we have tried so far!
This is great! I guess you could save it too by adding another sheet on top.
Yes! Or (if it doesn’t have writing on) just flip it around and save it that way. We have done that with other creations.