Despite the promise of some drier, warmer weather, it is quite possible that it won’t continue for the whole of the summer holidays. If you are on holiday in a caravan or motorhome and it has been raining for several days there is a chance that you will run out of ideas to stop the children becoming bored and irritable. Even in the limited space of a caravan or motorhome there are still plenty of things that can be done that don’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money. Most of the suggestions below will require paper and pens, but even if you haven’t got them to hand they can be bought in many places at a reasonable price.
Design a board game
Children have wonderful imaginations, and this idea can be done individually or in a group and could be developed over several days. Even if you do not have what is required to make the game itself, the planning stages and creation of the rules can be just as fun with the promise of making the game perhaps on another rainy day when you get home and have more materials at your disposal.
Make paper airplanes
If you have an Internet connection paper airplane templates can be downloaded, but the majority of people know how to make a basic plane. The basic design can be obviously be tampered with and you could hold a competition to see who’s airplane goes the furthest, although you may need to wait until it has stopped raining to avoid any breakages.
Get on the beach!
Regardless of the rain. Sandcastles can be made bigger and better because the sand is wet. Get the children to build sand sculptures in the shape of different animals. Once they are busy creating, they will soon forget the rain.
Make some biscuits or cookies
The majority of caravans and motorhomes have a small oven and biscuits or cookies do not need a wide range of ingredients. You will probably find that you already have many of the main ingredients with you. There is a double benefit here because if it is cold outside as well as wet, having the oven on will also warm your caravan or motorhome.
Play games like hangman or boxes
All you need is a piece of paper and a pen. To play boxes, draw a grid of evenly spaces dots, perhaps 10 dots x 10 dots. Each player takes it in turn to join 2 dots together either vertically or horizontally, but not diagonally. The idea is to build up complete boxes, into which the box creator puts their initial to mark that the box is theirs. Once you complete a box, you also get an additional go. The person with the most amount of boxes when the grid is completely filled is the winner.
Write a story
The recent BBC Radio 2 500 word competition for children had a staggering number of entries this year. Steal a march on the competition for next year and get them to start writing their story. The topic could be anything from a bad day at the zoo to a jungle adventure to what they think will happen if it doesn't stop raining.
Design a new cartoon character
Would it have super powers? Who would its nemesis be? Where would it live? They could also draw a cartoon strip with bubble speech. It doesn’t matter how good anyone is at drawing as stick figures can be just as good.
Teach the children a new skill
This could be knitting, tying knots or making a sling. Perhaps you know a card trick that you can teach them or can show them how to collect and measure rain water. Most people have a skill of some sort that can be passed on to the next generation.
Play i-spy or charades or animal alphabet
Animal alphabet is really quite simple, starting at the letter A, each player takes it in turn to name an animal with the letter so Ant, Antelope etc., then everyone moves on to the letter B and so on. I do, however, recommend that you leave out the letter X! There are so many variations of this game where you can use towns, food or names for example and you can change the rules to make it as simple or as difficult as possible. If you can't see through the rain or fog, you could try i-spy with my little eye, what I could see if it wasn't raining / foggy etc.
Draw a family tree
This can go back as far as you like using your memory, or if you have an Internet connection, you could do some research online. Some information is available free of charge if you sign up for a 14 day trial on some websites.
Sleeping donkeys
This is a great one if you get really desperate and the children are quite young and possibly quite gullible. For the uninitiated, the children have to lie down and pretend they are a sleeping donkey. The winner is the one who can lie there for the longest without moving or talking!
Once you start to think about it, the list of ideas is almost endless and can be adapted to whatever the age and how much space you have available in your caravan or motorhome. You don’t need to be a child to enjoy some (if not all!) of the activities listed above or for it to be raining. Readers Digest, for example, has a 100 word writing competition every year for adults and children; Radio 2 has a 500 word competition for children, and the building of a family tree can be entertaining for all ages. Several of these suggestions can be started and put down if the weather should improve and then returned to if necessary should the rain start to fall again.
If you have any ideas that you would like to add to our list please let us know by commenting on this article below.
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