20 Indoor Activities for Kids at Home

Keep the kids busy at home with these fun activities. They’re great for spending time together.

If you have children, then you will be familiar with the days in which they are stuck indoors and feeling bored. You may often feel as though there is nothing productive for them to do around the house.

There is a range of activities that can be fun and educational. Ir might take a little imagination and ingenuity, but you are sure to come up with some ideas if you put your mind to it.

Here are fifteen suggestions to get you started:

1. Play Board Games

Board games are a classic indoor activity and have stood the test of time, even in the face of competition from digital media. Depending on your kids’ ages, you can play simple games like Monopoly.

Also, you could teach them a more sophisticated game like chess, or perhaps even get out some pens and paper so you can make an original board game together. If you want to build a varied library of board games, then the next time you are out and about you can look through charity shops.

You never know what games you will come across that might become new family favorites.

2. Cook With Your Kids

There are countless recipes that will make for a great afternoon with the kids, ranging from basic fare involving melted chocolate and cereals to more complex recipes that will suit older kids.

It’s a good idea to have a few children’s recipe books around the home for a rainy day, but failing that, you can always find recipes online.

3. Watch a Film Together and Review It

Watching a film does not have to be a passive, mindless pastime. There are ways to turn it into an active pursuit.

For example, you can prepare some homemade popcorn before the big feature, letting the kids choose a seasoning with it. Once the film is over, you will be able to discuss everything you liked or disliked about it.

If the film was based on a book, perhaps you could introduce your children to the original.

4. Get Creative with Drawing and Painting

Creative pastimes such as drawing and painting are favorites with most children. A day indoors is the perfect opportunity to encourage your children’s artistic abilities.

That’s from coloring books and paint-by-numbers to freeform creations made with paper and felt tips. The possibilities are endless.

You can join in, watching your kids as they draw and perhaps even working together to create a new masterpiece. Maybe you could take the opportunity to introduce them to a new medium?

Here is a nice page with tutorials on how to draw specifically for kids.

5. Get Crafty

Credit: tootsmomistired

Closely related to drawing is another classic childhood creative pursuit: making models. You can use specialized supplies such as balsa wood, or household scraps such as plastic bottles, and cardboard cereal boxes.

With scissors, glue, and sticky tape, your kids’ imagination will be the limit when it comes to putting together a creation or two. Here is a fun toilet roll craft!

Some of the crafts you might want to make with all of your children:

6. Give Online Tests a Try

Playing on the computer does not have to be a waste of time. There is a number of educational activities available to computer-literate children.

For a start, you could set them simple maths or English tests, and for older children, you might even introduce them to the world of coding so they can have fun coming up with apps of their own.

There are also many apps that fulfill creative needs, allowing children to draw pictures, tell stories or compose pieces of music. In today’s world, computer skills are essential.

Thus, making the learning process entertaining will be a great way to spend a day indoors.

7. Have a Tidy Up

Tidying up may not seem like the most exciting pursuit, and indeed, most children will be reluctant to get involved. But if you have a day set aside and bored children with nothing else to do, turning a tidy-up session into a game will be a good option.

Tidying up out-of-the-way places of the house might help you and your children to rediscover bits and pieces that you had forgotten all about.

8. Go on a Treasure Hunt

Many children enjoy treasure hunt games: choose an object, place it somewhere in the house. Then, with a few carefully-chosen clues, see who will be the one to find it.

Also, you could try a scavenger hunt, where players can find specific objects. That includes cups or toys you scatter across the house.

As you can imagine, it will be easy to turn a scavenger hunt into a tidying-up activity, something that will make it both entertaining and productive.

Check out ideas for an indoor treasure hunt here.

9. Play Science Games

If your kids are interested in science, there are a number of games you can play that will teach them as well as entertain them. Take a look online and you will find plenty of websites that suggest educational games that utilize basic science and chemistry.

You won’t even need a full chemistry set: there are many entertaining experiments that can be performed using ordinary substances to be found around the house.

So, long as you keep your children supervised as you play, a day of science games should be safe, informative and plenty of fun.

10. Set Up a Camp Indoors

Camping is an activity that fascinates many. Not just kids!

With a little ingenuity you will be able to turn your living room into a campsite: prop up sheets on poles to create tents, fold over blankets to use as sleeping bags.

Also, prepare some traditional camping snacks before bed. If you have a large enough room you might even be able to fit a real tent inside.

Although, that activity might be better off saved for the garden.

11. Listen to a Story Podcast

Reading a story is a classic indoor activity for homes with young children, and in today’s modern world it has expanded to take into account new technology.

There are reams of podcasts available online that contain stories appropriate for children, from beloved fairy tales to original stories by new authors.

Searching for new stories will be almost as entertaining as listening to them, and you can take the opportunity to have fun finding new treats as well as revisiting stories that you yourself enjoyed during your own childhood.

12. Play Some Indoor Sports

There is plenty of fun, harmless games that can be played by turning ordinary household objects into makeshift sporting equipment. You can play tennis indoors without damaging the room by using a balloon for a ball, and a sheet held up with a rail or string to serve as a net.

Or perhaps you could play a round of golf, using a broom as a club to knock the ball into a hole made from cushions. There are plenty of other options you could try out.

Discuss things with your kids and help them to come up with new ways of adapting their favorite sports into games that can be played around the house.

13. Look at Old Photographs Together

Although they are becoming a rarity in today’s world of digital images and social media, many homes will still have a number of old photograph albums tucked away somewhere.

Perhaps you could dig them out and share them with your children, giving them a tour through the family’s history. As a child, I remember it was one of my favorite activities!

It’s so fun to see where you’re coming from.