No matter how much effort you put into planning your child’s birthday party, the one thing that you cannot control is the weather. And in this rainy season, you have to be well prepared so that if it happens it is raining on your birthday, you won’t let the bad weather ruin your party.
Save your sanity and your furniture with traditional games or a carefully crafted get-wet adventure that burns off energy and lets everyone have a good time. Your rained-on party might be such a hit that everyone won’t forget it for a long time.
Admittedly, rainy days can be a bit more challenging, but let me reassure you that there are plenty of ways to keep the kids amused.
Terribly Talented
Encourage the kids to take center stage with a giant costume box, several mirrors set up around the room and a make-up station. Grownups could paint the faces of little ones while older kids could do their own thing with face-painting kits. A stage area with good lighting and pillows for floor seating is the theater. Older children could work together to create a scene. Younger kids could put on a talent show.
Record the play to watch and vote on — then announce awards, bringing each child up to the stage for applause and a funny gift or trophy. Email the footage to everyone so guests can revisit the fun.
Treasure Trail
Invite guests to wear their wellies and do some puddle stomping in case of rain.
Prepare treasure maps for the nearby park, the yard or neighborhood and laminate them for wet-weather navigation. Hand out cheap, colorful rain ponchos as part of the party swag and divide guests into teams. Give each team a map with a different start point and let them identify landmarks to discover wrapped treasures or tokens to exchange for treasure at the end of the trail.
After the treasure hunt you can hand out beach towels for drying off before the explorers dash inside for cake and ice cream.
Other rainy-day games include the following:
Freeze Dance
This is a great musical game where kids dance around the room then stop suddenly when you pause the music. The slowest to stop is “out” and the game continues until there is a winner. A variation of this game is “bob down” (where the children have to quickly sit on the floor).
Follow the leader
Another great musical game, where you dance and the children copy you. You can then choose the best copier to take charge at leading the dancing moves and work your way around the group. From time to time, you will need to show them some different moves because otherwise they can easily end up just jumping on the spot.