What exactly do you do on cold, rainy, snowy, days, when you spent your whole day inside? get bored? let the kids drive you crazy? There MUST be better things to do than that.........
:-) Here are some suggestions for activities you can do with the family (but alone too).

Here are some games to keep the kids busy :-) Don't forget to play with them too!

• Home News: Put a nice empty notebook in the living-room (or family-room), and add crayons, pencils and pens to it. All the members of the family are welcome to scrumble, complain, draw, praise or write anything in it. One can be the food reporter of the house, the other one - the weather reporter, etc. Spend some time every evening to read with the whole family the reports of the day ;-)
  
  
• Board Games: all the well-known games, like: Trivia, Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Dominoes, Monopoly, Risk, The Clue, Scrabble.
  
  
• Card Games: Bridge, Poker, Black Jack, Canasta, Gin Rummy, Hearts, Solitaire, Egyptian Ratscrew. You can play with the kids on cookies or candy (remember The Roseanne Show?)
  
  
• Treasure Hunt: Hide a small token or gift around the house. Prepare notes with clues to different places inside the house. The last note should point out to the place where the treasure is. Hide the notes, while each note directs the kids to another place in the house, where the next note is. Give the kids the first note, and send them out searching. They MUST do it together. it's not a competition. They must search TOGETHER.
  Me and my sister used to play this game a lot in our childhood. You can also urge the kids to make their own notes & hide their own token. Even if your kids can't write yet, they can always draw the clue.

cooking & baking with the kids can be messy and tiresome, but it can also be a lot of fun! It all depends on your attitude. Share with the kids your love of cooking (if you have such a thing...). Even a small child can help a bit: stir, fetch things from the refrigerator, etc. Think of the kids' joy feeling like grown-ups! Not to mention the joy of eating the cookies afterwards.... ;-)
You can also try to do experimental cooking or make dishes from other countries every day (British, Chinese, Italian, French, Spanish, etc...).

• Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne
• The House at Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne
• The Wizard of Oz
• The Little Prince
• The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Comet in Moominland - Tove Janson
• The Exploits of Moominpappa - Tove Janson
• Moominland Midwinter - Tove Janson
• Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgern
• The Children on Troublemaker Street - Astrid Lindgern
• The Brothers Lionheart - Astrid Lindgern
• Ronia, the Robber's Daughter - Astrid Lindgern
• Merry Poppins
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll

You can get more ideas from:

• Rainy Day Projects
  Directed to parents and sorted out by the children's age. Each week feature another project.

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• Lego Scala - Creative Corner
  This site is directed to girls, but in my opinion there's no reason why a boy can't join and do some of the activities suggested. In this page they show you how to make all sorts of stuff (through pictures, not words), You can make up stories, Print pictures to color and send virtual postcards.

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and the most important thing is...Have Fun! Do Stuff Together!

© Racheli Sokol