Snowy Or Rainy Day Activities For Tweens and Teens

Picture this. It's a blustery, rainy day with nothing to do, or a snowy winter one where the kids are home from school (and you're home, too!). You're trying to think of some interesting snowy or rainy day activities geared to your tween or teen so that you can spend an enjoyable day together. Meanwhile, your tween or teen may be thrilled because to them it means a day of lazily hanging out on the couch, mindlessly watching tv or a movie while munching chips, or the opportunity to spend the day online or texting with friends incessantly. If you have other plans for them and would like to take advantage of this togetherness to spend some quality time with your tween or teen, then you need to come up with some interesting snowy or rainy day activities that they think will be fun and that won't make them want to roll their eyes at you. Although they may love the opportunity to "plug-in" on a lazy day like this, you can connect with them if you offer up some fun activities that will engage your tween or teen and will get them to want to hang out with you instead. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll even get in a decent conversation or two in the process!

Below are a handful of snowy or rainy day activities for tweens and teens. They can be enjoyed as a family or can be used to pass the time indoors with friends or siblings. These activities are geared to older kids and can be a great source of amusement for both parents and teens alike.

10 Snowy or Rainy Day Activities for Tweens and Teens:

1. Do a jigsaw puzzle. Chances are it's been awhile since you've all sat down and worked on a jigsaw puzzle together, but this can be a great diversion for the whole family, and provides opportunities for meaningful conversation.

2. Play a card game. Gone may be the days of playing "Go Fish" with your kids, but there are many other challenging card games to play with older kids. Engage them in a game of texas hold 'em, gin rummy, or another card game of choice and the time will fly by.

3. Sing karaoke. This may be a completely embarrassing activity for your teen or tween to enjoy when their friends are around (and if you ever sang in front of their friends, they'd surely cringe!), but when hanging out together at home on a rainy day, this can be a great source of fun and laughs.

4. Make a scrapbook. Take the opportunity to go through old pictures and put them into a scrapbook. If you don't have all the materials needed to make and decorate the book, then spend the day organizing and selecting photos to put in the book and enjoy reminiscing about old memories. If you have digital photos, there are some great online digital scrapbooking sites, like Shutterfly, where you can make a beautiful scrapbook, complete with custom pages and journaling, in no time.

5. Make a video together. Plan it out together and record away. Kids are so into videos today that it could be fun to make a family video. You can recreate a talk show and conduct interviews, try your hand at a game show or act out a comedy. Either way, you'll have a chance to get creative and have a memento of your day spent together.

6. Make a house of cards. Remember the days when your kids could be entertained for hours with blocks or legos? Well, they may not be willing to break out the blocks these days, but the challenge of trying to build a house of cards could certainly bring out the architect in any teen.

7. Devise a mystery sound game. See how keen everyone's sense of hearing is by having one person or group go around the house and record various sounds heard around the house. This can easily be done even with a cell phone if you don't have a tape recorder. Then try to guess what the sounds are.

8. Have a dance party. Let loose and get some exercise, too! Take turns choosing music to dance to so you can both enjoy each other's selections and maybe teach each other a few moves in the process.

9. Play challenging word, number, or trivia games. Games like Rummikub, Scrabble, Upwords, Trivial Pursuit and more are always fun to revisit, so if you have a few games lying around the house, dust them off and challenge each other to a game or two.

10. Plan a meal with items from the pantry. Get creative together and put everyone's cooking skills to the test. Older kids love to eat and can have a great time trying to concoct a new recipe based on what's available in the pantry or fridge. And you'll get out of having to figure out what's for dinner!