30 Indoor Games That’ll Get Kids Moving

The weather is getting warmer, which means it never hurts to have a few creative indoor games at the ready. With just a little bit of prep, a so-called “boring afternoon” can be turned into hours of fun-filled family play. From musical chairs to flip cup fun, these indoor games for kids are what you can pull out once they’ve ridden their bikes and played in the sprinklers to boot. Keep reading to find your favorites.

Color Match

Choose a few colorful old socks. Fill each sock with dry rice, beans or something similar and tie the ends together. Place sheets of paper on the floor—with one for each color of sock. Your child can toss the homemade bean bag onto the corresponding color of paper.

Animal Antics

Can your kiddo waddle like a walrus? Walk like a penguin? Gallop like a horse? Call out animal names and watch as your child imitates the creature’s antics.

Bat the Balloon

Fill a balloon, toss it into the air and count how many pats your child can bat the balloon before it falls to the ground. Add another balloon to make the game more challenging.

Mirror Mirror

Take follow the leader to a whole new level. Pretend your child is a mirror and have them imitate your movements—reflection style. Reverse the course and give them a chance to play the role of leader as you mirror them.

Color Hunt

Stage a rainbow-filled scavenger hunt at home. Give your child pieces of colorful construction paper and ask them to find something around the house that matches each one.

Musical Chairs

Don’t count out the games you played as a child. Set up chairs in your playroom, turn on the tunes, and play a game of musical chairs.

Kitchen Creation

Get moving in the kitchen. Challenge your kids to use a buffet of ready-picked ingredients to concoct their most creative creations. Judge their menu pics, and hand out awards such as, “Sweetest” or, “Most colorful creation.”

photo: Erica Loop

Paint Race

Who can paint a portrait, landscape or still life the fastest? Choose a subject, hand out the canvases and race to see who can paint their masterpiece the fastest.

Family Freeze

Are you looking for games for kids that don’t require materials, cards, boards or anything else? Try a quick game of freeze. Let the kids run, dance, twirl or move to their own beat. Yell, “freeze,” and watch them suddenly turn into statues.

Build a Fort

Gather those decorative pillows and cushions from your living room and help the kids to build a fort. If you want to turn this old school activity into an indoor game, race to build two forts. The strongest fort built in the shortest time is the winner.

Make Your Own Memory

Don’t worry if you didn’t remember to buy a game of “memory”—you can make your own. Cut a piece of card stock or poster board paper into equal-sized squares. Group the squares into pairs, and have your child draw matching designs, letters or numbers. Turn the cards over and play a matching game of memory.

Indoor Bowling

Put your growing water bottle collection to use. Line the bottles up bowling pin-style and use a soft, squishy ball to bowl!

Hide and Seek

Reverse roles and let your kiddo become the seeker. You can hide, in a sort of obvious space, as your child counts to 10.

photo: Erica Loop

Pattern Play

If you have tempera paints, you have an afternoon’s worth of fun-filled artsy play. Pour pools of different colors of paint onto a paper plate or piece of scrap cardboard. Dip your fingers into different hues of tempera and create a paint-print pattern. Hand the paint over to your kiddo and watch as they follow your lead and create a matching pattern

photo: Erica Loop

Rainbow Race

Add science to your indoor games for youth! Preschoolers and younger kiddos will get a kick out of this fun-filled full “STEAM” -ahead game. Drip a few drops of food coloring into water and freeze colorful cubes. When the ice is ready, place different colors on one side of a piece of poster board paper and race the cubes to see which one melts the fastest—and wins!

Cup Flip Fun

This simple game is a total energy burn. To play, grab 20 paper or plastic cups from the cupboards and scatter them around the room—10 facing up and 10 facing down. Divide your crew into the Up Team and the Down Team before setting a five-minute timer. Once the timer is set, send the teams off to flip cups in their direction (up for Up Team, down for Down Team).

photo: Erica Loop

Icy Building Blocks

No blocks? No problem! Freeze colorful cubes of ice and use them to build skyscrapers in your kitchen. Have a parent-child contest to see who can build the highest tower—without toppling the freezing blocks.

Color Wheel Magic

Preschoolers will totally dig this simple game you can make with construction paper. Place colored papers around on the ground cakewalk style and turn on some music. Then start your crew out around the circle. Whatever color they’re on when the music stops becomes their challenge color, and they need to race through the house to find an object in that color. The first one back to the circle wins!

In-Home Hopscotch

A long stretch of wood or tile flooring is all your little ones need to play a little indoor hopscotch. Lay out the game using painters or washi tape so it won’t stick to your floors. Then off they go, tossing and hopping down the alley until they reach 10. Get more on this sweet idea over at Toddler Approved.

Dress-Up Challenge

Raid the dress-up bin or pile all your best costumes together. Then call out open-ended prompts your kids can respond to with their clothing choices. Dress up as someone who helps others. Dress up as someone who builds things. Dress up as a hero. Have kids race against each other or set a timer for singletons as they take on this best-dressed challenge.

Storybook Show

Combine two favorite activities into one when you help your kids get their favorite book ready for its stage debut. Think out costumes, dialogue, and actions as you prepare them to act out their favorite book for the most approving audience around—you and your parenting partner! It’ll be all standing ovations and encore applauses when they’re done.

Bubble Wrap Bop

This is the time to pull out all the bubble wrap you’ve stashed since the holidays. When your kids get restless, pull it out and create a dance floor. Try out some follow the leader fun, have the kids hop and bop to their favorite tunes or play a game of musical freeze.

Balloon Challenge

Blow up as many balloons as you can, and divide them up so roughly half are inside a painter’s tape-made circle and half are outside of it. Then free the kids, challenging one to get as many balloons into the circle, while inviting the other to keep as many as possible out. It’s a Ying/Yang situation that’ll wear them out faster than you can say, “nap time!”

Family Wrestling Match

This simple activity pits your kiddo against mom or dad in a battle of physical strength. To play, create a circle using painter’s tape or something that will easily peel off your floors. Make sure it’s big enough to move around in. Plant yourself firmly in the middle before motioning to your sidekick Matrix-style to try and wrestle you out of the circle. Set a timer for each round or keep it going until you finally get pushed out.

Pillowcase Race

Who doesn’t need an excuse to change the bedsheets? Have the kids stuff themselves into their pillowcases, then send them off down a carpeted hallway or across a room with a rug toward an imaginary finish line. Add in obstacles to make it more challenging and to keep the fun rolling.

Dance Party

Host an indoor dance party—with a game-filled twist. Turn on your kid's favorite tunes and dance follow the leader style. The leader twirls, whirls and swirls around the room, while everyone else follows.

Potato Relay

To play this silly game, all you need are buckets, potatoes and kids with a good sense of humor. Set the buckets up at one side of the room. Next, ask each child to carry a potato down between their legs (no hands allowed) and plop it in the bucket before turning tail and running back to tag the next in line.

At-Home Obstacle Course

Indoor games get an activity boost with this obstacle-filled option. Use all the cardboard delivery boxes in your basement or pile pillows together. Then have your ninja warriors test their skills on the course that gives them a totally legit reason to climb the furniture.

Photo Scavenger Hunt

Make your kids’ day with this simple-to-set-up activity that you can play virtually anywhere. Write a list of random items your kids could find around the house. Then, send them off with your phone to find and snap pictures of each of the items. Make the list as long or as short as you like and change it every time you play.

Balloon Ball

All it takes to play balloon volleyball, baseball, basketball or hockey is hot air (to blow up the balloons!) and a little ingenuity. Use trash cans on opposite sides of the room as baskets, and a simple painter’s tape line to divide the room for a volleyball net. For hockey and baseball, use pool noodles to bat balloons in the air or on the ground.

—Erica Loop with Allison Sutcliffe

 

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Feature photo: iStock