11 Fun Indoor Activities for Kids
What’s a mom to do when she has 3 kids to keep entertained indoors without destroying your house? Create a list of fun indoor activities and have them ready for these indoor play days.
I wish my kids could play outside every day. Playing outside has many benefits for children. One of the most important reasons to play outside is to keep your child active and moving. But… some days are not play outside days – it’s too cold, it’s snowing, or it’s raining. For the days, we cannot play outside, we need fun indoor activities too.
If you know you will have a full day or more of indoor only time, I suggest a little planning ahead so you can be prepared with everything you will need for a fun day of indoor activities and keep your children busy. Since everyone will have rainy days/indoor days sometimes, you can also have a few items in your closet you only take out for the rainy days.
11 Fun Indoor Activities for Kids
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Family Game Night/Family Game Day
Plan a complete day of family games. When I was a child, we played board games all the time (like Monopoly, Scrabble, Connect 4, Battleship). Today, you have so many options. Board games can involve the whole family. You can play boys against girls or parents against kids.
Some of our favorite family games are Apples to Apples, Beat the Parents, and Wits and Wagers. These games can be played individually or as teams.
Baking Day
If you know you will have to stay indoors for a day, plan a baking day. You can bake cookies, cakes, brownies. You can decorate them too.
After you finish baking, share some of your goodies with your friends. Let your children make snack bags to share when the sun comes out.
Learning how to cook is a great life skill to teach your kids. Baking is a fun place to start.
Lego Building Day
This is one of my favorite indoor activities. Plan a day for building legos. You can take your large box of random Legos and start building. Before you start building, come up with a plan for what you will build. Are you building a skyscraper? Or a mini village?
You could also have a Lego building competition, call it Lego Wars! Start by dividing an even number of Legos for each person (try to give everyone similar size Legos to work with) and let them build. Give them a time limit to complete their project like 30 or 60 minutes. Let one person decide who built the most creative or inventive design.
Movie Marathon Day
Get all the movies from your favorite series like all 6 Star Wars Movies or all the Ice Age Movies and have a family movie marathon day. Don’t forget the popcorn!
Check out these favorite movies from the 80’s for more great movies ideas.
Freezer Cooking Day
My girls love to help in the kitchen. If you have a day that you know will be rainy or not good for outside play, plan a freezer cooking day. You can prep the meals for a week or two weeks or even a month in just a few hours. If you need some recipe ideas, try Kelly at New Leaf Wellness for some inspiration. This is another fun way to teach your children about how to cook.
Build Indoor Tents
When I was a kid, we loved to build indoor tents. My kids love to do it, too. They grab a few sheets and blankets and find a chair or whatever they can use to hold up their tent and start building.
Making indoor tents is fun and kids love to play in them (even older kids ages 8-12).
If you have boys and girls, you can have each make their own fort and defend their forts.
Forts are also fun for reading books and playing pretend house.
Craft Day
Crafts are always fun to make. If you need to stay indoors, having a craft day is a fun way to spend the day. You can make homemade playdough or homemade slime. You would also try simple things like tissue paper flowers.
Competitive Video Game Day
First, let me say I don’t encourage playing video games for long periods of time, but if you are stuck inside you could have some fun with a game competition.
When the kids were younger, we would play games like MarioCart that can be competitive. We would race each other, then the winner would race someone else until someone has won all the races.
Art/Color/Drawing Day
Pull out the coloring books and crayons and make it a coloring day.
I am always amazed at how long my daughter can sit and color pictures and draw art. Of course, you have to hang all the new artwork up in the house for everyone to see.
Clean-up/Reorganize a Room or Closet Day
If you have to be indoors, put your time to good use and clean-out one of your closets or reorganize the bookshelves, get your kids involved too. They can find clothes and shoes that no longer fit and toys they don’t use or that are broken.
Make a big pile and donate all the unused items you found to charities.
Science Experiments Day
Do you have a child that loves science?
My son and I built a volcano, he loved doing the science experiment. There are so many simple science experiments to prove scientific theories that you can do at home indoors.
Bonus: Reading Day
Have everyone select their favorite book or books and spend quiet time reading. Learning to enjoy reading is important for all children. Choose books for your home library your children will enjoy and encourage them to read.
Next time you have an indoor day, give your day a theme like Lego Competition Day or Family Game Day. Or you can try freezer cooking or science experiments. So many fun ways to spend a day indoors.
Your turn…
What fun family activities do you do when you have to stay indoors? What are your favorite family movies for movie day or games for a family game day?