Rainy day vacation sanity

The forecast calls for a 100 percent chance for rain today. So that means we need to come up with creative play time in a small cabin on the edge of an island. I’m not complaining. I’m saying I hope I am prepared well for the day. [Check out new video I added at the bottom of this post!]

Driving here for 24 hours is a great way to prep for a rainy day in Maine. This year, I had hoped to encourage the kids to do more than just watch DVDs the entire way. For Jordan, I hoped she would read a few more books and I packed a pile of crayons and projects. Her top five time-filling favorites include some tech and some non-tech fun:

1. DVD player – Jordan’s favorite DVDs this summer so far are The Muppets, The Princess Bride and Wreck-It Ralph. Since this is the first big car trip where she’s had access to the DVD player and can read really well, she’s finally digging into the movie extras. Cameron has shown her how you can watch the director track version or check out behind the scenes extras. Jordan’s really tuned into enjoy that experience.

2. Fashion Angels sketch portfolios – You can use little outfit grids to design fashions around different faces. Her favorite set was sent to us by the company to try out – it’s a Disney Princess Compact Design Sketch Portfolio. She’s created all kinds of princess designs.

3. Doodle books – Jordan’s design muse extended with a doodle book I bought at Barnes and Noble right before our trip. It’s called Summer Fun Doodles. There are all kinds of summer scenes where you can add color and design to the outfits and items in the pictures. She’s getting super creative and it has eaten up huge portions of time while she gets super creative.
  3. An old iPad – Jordan plays a handful of apps: Toca Hair Salon, Where’s My Water, Skylanders (all of the apps), Madlibs (you don’t need the actual book to giggle about words these days) and her recent discovery of Candy Crush. (Check out one of Jordan’s hair styles in the Toca Hair Salon:)

4. Books, books and books – Jordan started using the Storia app for her books this year. She’s also really enjoying Magic Treehouse paperback books and sometimes Junie B. Jones.

So, these are a few of the things we’re going to do today. What would you do if you couldn’t go out today and all you have time to do is play? We have a deck of cards but Jordan is terrible at losing games right now. (Of course, the more she plays and loses, the more she’ll learn.) We don’t have popcorn to pop or marshmallows to cook… But we could possibly venture out and find things like that. I’ll take any and all ideas so we can make sure to have a SUPER fun day.

EXTRA IDEA UPDATE: Thanks to Carol for the puddle jumping idea, Jordan decided to step it up a notch and jump into puddle dancing: