10 Easy Sensory Play Ideas for Rainy Days
- Lauren
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Why Rainy Days Are Perfect for Sensory Play
Indoor days don’t need to be boring! When the rain is hammering down outside, it's easy to forget that fun and engaging sensory play can happen inside too. Sensory play indoors keeps babies active, engaged, and stimulated, and can be done with items you already have at home.
10 Easy Sensory Play Ideas
🧣 Peekaboo with Scarves – Our youngest absolutely loves peekaboo, and we find that it produces endless belly laughs! You can do this with sensory scarves or you can even use normal winter scarves.
🧺 Indoor Treasure Basket – Simply fill a basket with safe household objects, anything and everything from wooden spoons to tennis balls, maybe even some tin foil or soft toys.
💡 Torchlight Games – A great one for the impending darker winter evenings before bedtime. Use a small torch to track beams of light in a dark room, you could even make it a disco!
🎶 Musical Shakers – Add some rice to a sealed container, it can even just be a tuppaware tub! Put some music on and watch as your little one shakes it all around.
🫧 Bubble Play – Blowing bubbles doesn't have to just be for outside. Blow some bubbles inside with a bubble tube and let your baby pop away!
🌈 Ribbon Dancing – You don't have to get fancy with this, you can simply hold pieces of ribbon (from that unused craft cupboard!) and move them around and watch your baby track the bright colours. This is great for younger babies, but older ones will love trying to hold and copy too.
👋 Texture Exploration – Spend some time exploring some textures around you. The bathroom is a perfect room to explore; from soft wash cloths, sponges and even brushes, your little one is bound to find something fun to explore.
💧 Water Bag Play – Grab a food/sandwich bag and pop some water in (don't overfill it) and seal it (double seal with tape too!). You can then explore this with your little one on your knee or tape to their high chair table and let them explore. You can add food colouring or little pieces of confetti!
📖 Story time with Textures – Don't just read a book... play the book! Use props, finger puppets, maracas... you name it and you can probably add it to a story book you've got!
🎁 Sensory Box Play – and last but not least.. why not grab one of our curated sensory boxes for rainy days? Our best-selling and award-winning Premium Sensory Box is a perfect starter kit as well as an easy set to grab when you need it!
Tips for Sensory Play at Home
✅ Keep sessions short — 10 minutes is plenty for little ones.
✅ Always supervise your baby during play.
✅ Follow their lead — if they lose interest, it’s okay to stop.
✅ Reuse items in new ways — the same scarf can be a peekaboo game one day and a dancing prop the next.
Lauren x
