Because we live in an apartment and I cannot shoo the kids out the door at a moment’s notice, my kids and I have become experts in finding and playing fun indoor games for kids. I have a gigantic list of indoor activities for kids, but it is such an extensive list it can get overwhelming fairly quickly. I’ve curated some of the best indoor games below, our own as well as some fun games for kids from other sites.
Depending on your needs, peruse the list for indoor games to get your kids moving, educational and learning ideas, as well as pen and paper games for when you need to keep things a bit calmer than usual.
These fun indoor games for kids will get you through the cold winter (or the hot summer), no problem!
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Fun Indoor Games for Active Kids
Land, Sea and Air is an indoor jumping game that also helps with executive function
Magnet wand alphabet game. Kids will love to make up their own levels of play, just like a real life video game.
Sock Hockey. Use brooms for sticks and balled up socks as the puck!
Paper airplane landing strips. How many airplanes can you land in the correct spot. Plus, practice engineering skills while building elaborate landing spots.
Indoor frisbee with plastic lids! Really.
Indoor boomerangs. They (probably) won’t break anything and kids use their brains in order to make them.
Tape shape ball game. More fun than it seems.
Homemade carnival game. As fun as it seems.
Make straw rockets.
Put down painter’s tape on the floor and blow a pom pom or ping pong ball along the tape line using a straw!
Balloon tennis gets kids moving.
Indoor croquet. You can make your own set out of cardboard tubes and ping pong balls. We loved making and playing the version we got in a Kiwi Crate.
Vertical bowling with plastic cups is easy to set up and provided ample building opportunities.
Sensory shot put is a unique way to help kids with their gross motor skills.
Dinosaur gross motor movement game is a fun indoor game for kids with prehistoric tendencies.
Crush the cups is a clever minute to win it game to help kids get out their aggressive energy.
Hopscotch. Use painter’s tape to create the squares on the floor.
Lava. Did you play this as a kid? Put pillows on the floor and instruct kids that if they fall off the pillows they will be falling into hot lava!!!
Make a ring toss with an upright cardboard paper towel roll and rings cut from paper plates.
Learn how to juggle with balled up socks or ping pong balls.
Fun Indoor Educational Games
Secret code scavenger hunt is a favorite after school indoor game for my boys.
Frozen word hunt can be done in the bath, or on a tray.
Rhyming games are great for any time and an excellent literacy builder.
Sift-n-Spell adds a lot of learning into a sensory hunt.
Classic thinking games can be done when you want the kids to settle down.
Have balloon rocket races and learn about science.
Learning letters indoor maze game is fun for kids who love their toy vehicles.
Sight word snowball fight and sight word stomp!
Fun Pen and Paper Games
I Spy Printables from The Pleasantest Thing are endless fun.
Giant Dot to Dot is a good way to work both fine motor and gross motor skills at the same time. You can also add in some counting practice.
Toddler Dot to Dot. I developed this one day when my toddler was jealous of his big brother’s extreme dot to dots.
Dots and Boxes is a classic, beginning strategy game.
Shut the box – another classic pen and pencil game.
The Exquisite corpse drawing game is sure to make everyone laugh
A tandem drawing game is good for quiet time.
MORE:
When you are looking for traditional board games, take a look through the game of the month archives.
- Indoor activities for tweens
- Indoor activities for toddlers
- Indoor ball games
- Ugly but awesomely easy indoor activities for kids
- Indoor nature activities for winter afternoons
- Indoor active art activities
- Indoor water play ideas for kids
- Indoor family games (no board required)
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Rebekah Gienapp says
January 8, 2016 at 11:36 amMy 3 year old is completely dino obsessed right now. Can’t wait to try the gross movement activity with him.
Jeanette Nyberg says
January 12, 2016 at 9:16 pmMy favorite on that list is the Exquisite Corpse drawing game. Seriously, who is the genius behind that?
Erica MomandKiddo says
January 13, 2016 at 11:36 amha ha ha
Johny says
March 10, 2016 at 4:41 amIndoor frisbie sounds dangerous with my two kids although when they were a bit younger we used to play indoor baseball – it’s not as bad as it sounds though. Roll a piece of newspaper into a ball with a bit of tape, use a wooden ruler as a bat and make sure any precious objects are removed. Another great game is the alphabet game. Pick a topic, for example animals, and take it in turns picking an animal starting with, A, B, C and so on…
Peter says
April 15, 2018 at 5:11 amThis is a great list of indoor games. We play Paper airplane landing strips. The kids like it, even it takes our time.
Jenna kids says
May 19, 2018 at 1:28 pmVery good list of games when it is not very good outside.
My 4 children will no longer be bored on rainy Sundays !!!!