With rain lashing the windows and the wind howling outside, February half term can be the trickiest one for entertaining the kids because the weather is so unpredictable. I have already shared a fantastic list of cheap or free events to keep the kids entertained during half term, but if the weather is as bad as it is today, what if you cannot leave the house!
7 Fun indoor activities for February Half Term
Make your own chocolate
Kids love making their own chocolate and it is really easy to do. Buy chocolate moulds online and get creative. Our favourite recipe is Marbled Chocolate.
Simply break up and melt 100g of white chocolate and 100g of dark chocolate in two separate bowls. Place a teaspoon of melted white chocolate and a teaspoon of dark or milk chocolate in a mould and use a toothpick to swirl the chocolates together for a marbled effect.
Leave to set at room temperature and Voila, your own chocolate creations.
Arrange a sleepover
The kids love nothing more than their friends coming over for a sleepover and Eliza is very keen to try out some of the recipes in the Sleepover Cookbook she got for her birthday.
I find that the kids pretty much entertain themselves, the boys tend to play computer games and the girls play games, make bracelets and watch films. Make sure you have a switch off and sleep time and be prepared to ask them to be quiet several times before they actually go to sleep.
Have a paper aeroplane competition
Did you know that the farthest flight by a paper aircraft is 69.14 meters?
Paper aeroplanes, are great fun to make and kids love them. Check out paperaeroplanes.com and see how many different types of aircraft you can make and fly.
Build a den
Building a den is great for encouraging children’s imagination and independence and is great fun to do.
It can get quite technical too, as you need to get things balanced and secure, so great for their reasoning skills. Sebby was off poorly from school this week and even fell asleep in his!
Play cards
Build card houses, play card games – a simple deck of cards can give the kids hours of fun.
Our favourite game to play is “Go Fish“, where the goal is to win the most “books” of cards. A book is any four of a kind, such as four kings, four aces, and so on.
Apply for a Blue Peter Badge
My kids are busy collecting their Blue Peter Badges and there are 8 to collect.
Eliza and Isaac have the blue, green and purple badges and are currently working on their music badge, which has been designed by Ed Sheeran. It’s awarded to those who show off their passion for music by learning a new instrument or being part of a musical performance.
You can even enter a competition to design their new sports badge, but hurry, it finishes on 19th February!
Movie Marathon
We love nothing more than sitting down as a family and enjoying a movie marathon.
Make it extra special, by popping some popcorn, opening the haribo and settling down with a drink, just like you would in the cinema.
There are some great new releases on Netflix for February half term, such as Peter Rabbit or head over to Amazon Prime for Paddington 2, or break out the Disney DVD’s.
Do you have any plans for half term yet?
Den making is a favourite in our house. We’ve got a living room sleepover planned with the children too.
Didn’t know there were 8 Blue Peter Badges to collect from – wow! Have to say building a den was one of my favourite things – this is such a great list you have created!
We love a good den. We haven’t done that for a while actually.
We built many pillow and blanket forts when I was younger. I love having a movie night with my boys, and making chocolate sounds good.
I keep forgetting when school holidays are as I don’t have kids. I used to make my own chocolates loads when I was a kid so I’d love to get back into it when I have the kitchen space x
I still love den making which I do with my nephews whenever I go to visit, their imagination is much better than mine as to what we can use to create that den, but we have a go!
We absolutely adore den making and will turn the whole of the downstairs into a huge giant one. I never knew there were so many Blue Peter badges to collect, I was desperate for one when I was a kid, so may have to encourage the kids to work towards them.
Great suggestions, it looks like it is going to be a wet and windy half term here so we will definitely give some of these a try! I know my two would love the den building and a spot of baking always goes down well too!
These are really good ideas, we love building dens as well as baking but may give making chocolate a go this half term 🙂
Laura x
These are all such fun ideas, I used to love making dens and having movie nights as a child! I got a blue peter badge when I was younger, and totally think it’s worthwhile earning one!
Great ideas – our half term is next week so this is perfect timing! I tried making a den once and it went terribly wrong so ended up buying a teepee……!!
These are such fun activities to experience this month when the temperature might be too cold to go outside all the time. We always loved sleepovers with cousins and making forts in the basement.
We have an separate room for our kids which they can spare the time during the holidays. We have stuffed inside with all playing stuff and so on between recently we done with tree house for them too.