• Rainy days don't have to be boringkids image by Tomasz Wojnarowicz from Fotolia.com
  
  Rainy days provide ample opportunity for family fun. You do not need to go out and bust the family budget to keep smiles on everyone's faces. Simply look around your house and get creative. The activities you choose are dependent on the ages of your children, but many can be adapted to include all skill levels and abilities.
  
  

Table Hockey

• Using a coffee table, dining room or kitchen table as the rink, you can play indoor table hockey at home. All you need are some craft sticks for the hockey sticks, a crumpled up piece of paper for the puck, some blocks or books for the rink borders and two willing players. Line the blocks or books up along the edges of the table, leaving a gap at both ends. These will be the nets.
  
  With one player on each side, behind each net, drop the puck in the center of the table and let the play begin. You can add rules. A possible rule can be that each player gets just one flick shot to try to make a goal; another potential rule may be that each player must use their non-dominant hand to shoot the puck. A little bet could be that the loser has to clean the winner's bedroom.
  
  If you have more than two kids at home, turn this into a tournament. The children not playing can keep score.
  
  

Flashlight Tag

• Play flashlight tag during a thunderstormphoto lampe de poche image by vanessa martineau from Fotolia.com
  
  This works best at night or when the power gets knocked out during a thunderstorm. The person who is "it" has a flashlight. It is turned off while the others hide, and the person woh is "it" counts to at least 50. Once the "it" player reaches his final number, he turns on the flashlight and proceeds to look for the others. To catch one, he has to call out her name, using the flashlight to see her. If he is wrong, he continues being "it" until he properly identifies a hider. That hider then becomes "it." This game can go on for quite a while, and the kids can change it up as they please, like teaming up or creating a "jail" for the kids caught.
  
  

Rainy Day Bake-off

• Young girl baking cut-out cookiesbaking christmas cakes image by Renata Osinska from Fotolia.com
  
  Each child should team up with an adult or child old enough to safely operate the oven and other kitchen appliances. Simply divide the group into two teams. Teams pick their own recipe, then start baking. After all the baked goods are done and cooled, each person samples each entry, and rates them on a scale of one to five. The team who wins does not have to help clean up the kitchen, while the other team members need to make the kitchen cleaner than it was before the bake-off.
  
  

Paint the Sidewalk

• Sidewalk chalk turns vibrant in the rainsidewalk chalk image by Jeffrey Sinnock from Fotolia.com
  
  Most kids like to draw with sidewalk chalk when the weather is warm and the sun is out. Those same kids would probably love to do it in the rain, too. The chalk colors turn vibrant and thick, making the kids artwork stand out on a gray rainy day.
  
  

Board Games

• Play a board game on a rainy dayisolated dice image by Nikolay Okhitin from Fotolia.com
  
  Pull out the board games you have not played for a while. Make some hot chocolate and popcorn, turn the television off and play all afternoon. Some good games for this include: Monopoly, Scrabble, Pictionary, Clue and Trivia Pursuit.