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100 Fun Indoor Activities for Kids while Social Distancing

Parenting, Non-Podcast / by

If ever there was a time to have a list of indoor activities for kids to keep them occupied, this is it. Being stuck inside with kids can be difficult – it helps to be prepared with a list to turn to for inspiration. We’ve come up with 100 fun and entertaining indoor activities and games, and made sure to keep them varied so there’s something for everyone (these are adaptable for any age). 

Try some of the activities here to find your kids’ favorites. We’ve included activities in crafts, education, games, fitness, music, podcasts, and more, to help make being stuck inside a little more fun. Also, because we’re parents too and appreciate anything that makes life a little easier, here’s a printable list of the indoor activities for kids.

You might also enjoy our Riddles for Kids (read or listen!), and our article on Educational Resources to help you teach your kids at home.

Crafts with Kids

  • Make bracelets or necklaces – they can mail them or give them to someone. 🙂
  • Make a bird feeder .
  • Make paper bag puppets.
  • Make a scrapbook .
  • Make a “Pokedex” (perfect for Pokemon fans). Just give them a notebook, title it: “[kid’s name]’s Pokedex”, and let them write the names and draw pictures of different Pokemon on each page (or create their own!). Depending on their age or how Pokemon-obsessed they are, they can include information (type, strengths, etc) on each Pokemon.
  • Make a thankful jar (or any container). They can decorate it with paint, pictures from magazines, stickers, or whatever you have. Then have small pieces of paper available, for kids to write or draw on, that they can put in the container. You can go through them together every week.
  • Make a sensory bag – particularly fun for the very little.
  • Make a time capsule.
  • Make button art – or just any small items that your kids can glue to paper (pom poms, sequins, beads, rocks, leaves, etc.). A lot of kids love gluing things. 
  • Color in a coloring book, or choose from the many free coloring pages here.
  • Build a cardboard castle – they can play with Lego people or any other small items as characters when it’s done.
  • Toilet paper crafts – find a bunch of toilet paper craft ideas here .
  • Make puffy sidewalk paint .
  • Draw a self portrait, or a portrait of someone else.
  • Crayola’s At-Home Creative Hub provides access to educational and crafting resources, and every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:00 pm it has live crafting events on Crayola’s Facebook page (hosted by Lynn Lilly from Craft Box Girls).

Activities & Games with Kids

  • Learn a magic trick! There are some easy tricks for kids here.
  • Have a Family Movie Day – make popcorn, grab some pillows and blankets, and let your kids choose one of their favorites (or try a new one!).
  • Play with Magnetic Tiles – our kids have these and love them. They can use other toys with these for creative play – our kids love these, these, and these. *These toys also make good water toys because they have no holes or cracks for water to get inside, just let them dry after playtime so they don’t lose their paint.
  • Build something with Lego – they can build a Lego town or city, or try to think of something your kids are into for inspiration. Ours like to make Pokemon characters. We love this set and these baseplates.
  • Play with Playdoh – either homemade or store-bought, lots of kids love playing with playdoh. Give them cookie cutters or safe utensils to play with, beads, beans, sequins, or googly eyes they can use to decorate their creations, or challenge older kids to try to make playdoh “sculptures” of different items.
  • Check out these Zoo and Aquarium live streams!
  • Have an indoor “campout” with whatever you can use – sleeping bags, lanterns, marshmallows, flashlights, a tent if you have one or “make” one with blankets. Then you can read or take turns telling stories, or maybe even nap (if you’re lucky).
  • Use hallways for games like “Red Light, Green Light”,indoor bowling games, or have little kids pretend to be different animals you call out as they walk down the hallway.
  • Make indoor hopscotch using masking or painter’s tape.
  • Create a race car track with painter’s tape.
  • Learn to knit.
  • Ping Pong ball toss – give kids plastic cups and ping pong balls (or any small objects) and have them toss the ball to a partner and try to catch it with the cup.
  • ABC Exercise Cards – the website Home School Share offers free printable alphabet exercise cards that describe an action for each letter. These help your kids get some exercise and while they learn letters.
  • Target practice – set up some targets, like empty bottles or toilet paper rolls, and have your kids try to knock them down with soft objects or Nerf guns. Or use painters tape as targets on a wall. Write different numbers on each target for points.
  • Life-Size Maze – Use books, yarn, blankets, toys, or anything you have that can create maze barriers. Kids love going through mazes, but if you’d like you can add some “treasure” at the end (paper cut into coins, stickers, a joke written on a paper).
  • Play Dungeons and Dragons! (around age 8+, but can probably adapt for younger) Here’s an article about playing Dungeons and Dragons with kids – you can get the books created to help younger players (and the adults teaching them) on Amazon. 
  • Family chores – kids (especially little kids) often enjoy getting to help around the house – you can try giving them a little soapy or vinegar water (in bowls or spray bottles) and some hand towels to clean the floors or windows.
  • Play with water in a bin, with toys, cups and spoons, (you can add food coloring), or they can just have some bath/playtime with toys.
You Might Enjoy:  Need a Break From Homeschooling? Teach Your Kids Some Life Skills

Educational Activities with Kids

  • Math with objects: Add, subtract, multiply with cereal, legos, or other small objects.
  • Math with dice: use dice to add and subtract and record on paper – use a timer to see if they can beat their time.
  • Math with playing cards: Use playing cards to practice math fact fluency – add, subtract, and multiply – make it a game with siblings/parents or beat their own time using a timer.
  • Play store: practice buying and selling – use fake money if you have or any small items as “units of money”. We have this toy cash register and our kids play with it often.
  • Make a map: your room, house, community or school – you could also have your kids create a treasure map and have them hide things for each other to find.
  • Shape hunt/scavenger hunt: find something red, something small and square, a piece of string, money, three puzzle pieces, etc.
  • Cook or bake with an adult: kids can help plan and prepare the meal, and even make a menu with words or pictures. And instead of baking, your kids can decorate baked goods (like cupcakes) with frosting and sprinkles.
  • Read: to themselves, an adult, a sibling, a teddy bear,  a friend through phone/video chat, or just read with your kids if they’re not reading yet. You can also have nonreaders “read” to you by telling you the story using the pictures.
  • Our kids love Mad Libs – they think they’re hilarious (even if every noun they choose is “poop”), and they learn about the difference between nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. Plus your young readers can practice reading them out loud.
  • Find nouns in your house – if possible have them write the words and add a checkmark when they find them.
  • Use adjectives to describe the nouns – like happy, silly, super, gigantic, tiny, enormous, short, brave, bright, fluffy, adventurous.
  • How many verbs can you do? Have them do them and write them down in a “physical activity log” each day.
  • Rhyme – you can play a rhyming game where one person says a word and the next has to rhyme with it.
  • Write a letter to family or a friend, or younger kids can send pictures they’ve drawn (or dictate a letter that you write for them).
  • Write a story (and illustrate it if they’re into drawing!). They can also create a shared story journal, where they start a story, and then a sibling, parent, or friend writes the next part (they can mail it back and forth if they need to), and so on until the story is complete. This is a great way for kids to socialize when stuck at home! 
  • Make a treasure hunt for your kids, hiding written clues around your house. (You can make the clues rhyme if you’d like them to practice rhyming!). Readers can read the clues to non-readers, or your clues can be drawings (think Blue’s Clues). For older kids, they can take a turn writing the clues themselves, and hide an item for the “treasure”. 
  • Read and memorize short poems.
  • Learn about a country – National Geographic and the Kids World Travel Guide website are excellent resources for this.
  • Learn a new language – there are some free language-learning apps, like Duolingo, that kids can use to learn new languages.
  • Play hangman.
  • Try to solve riddles and brain teasers
  • Check out a science show, like “Brainchild” on Netflix or “Xploration DIY Sci” on Amazon Prime, which make learning about science fun for kids. Talk to your kids afterwards about what they learned.
  • Listen to a podcast! Some great options for kids:
    • Wow in the World
    • The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian
    • Molly of Denali
    • Brains On! 
    • But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids
    • Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest
    • Stories Podcast: A Bedtime Show for Kids
    • Story Pirates
    • 7 in 7 An Educational Podcast for Kids (full disclosure, this one’s ours) 🙂
  • Listen to an audiobook – check out your library’s audiobook options, or find something on audiobooks.com or Amazon.
  • Storyline Online – famous actors read stories for kids.

Health & Fitness activities with Kids

  • Have a dance party.
  • Try a new food and write a food critic review.
  • Stretch and breathing exercises (Cosmic Kids is a very entertaining online yoga class for kids on Youtube, (think Pokemon and Harry Potter yoga), and there are many other free online yoga videos.
  • Workout – jumping jacks, high knees, run in place, push-ups, sit-ups, arm circles – some kids enjoy leading the workouts 
  • Write or draw your feelings about: your family, friends, pet, yourself, etc.
  • Play catch.
  • Build an obstacle course – some ideas: line of tape to balance on (or use tape to make stepping stones or hopscotch squares), cushions to hop between, table or chair to crawl under, blanket over two objects to move under, objects to jump over or run around, hula hoops to jump through, etc. Let them help you come up with ideas.
  • PE with Joe: Fitness Coach Joe Wicks posts 30-minute workouts for students every weekday at 9 am EST on Youtube.
  • Whip/Nae Nae Elementary Cardio Workout: a fun dance workout performed by elementary-age kids, this one is super popular with kids.
  • Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel: we learned about this one from our 1st-grader (who learned about it from school). It’s a fun one to explore with lots of options with educational themes, dance, and movement.
  • GoNoodle – there’s a good chance you or your kids have heard of this Youtube channel, it’s a favorite for lots of kids. These short exercises will get them moving and laughing.
  • Saskia’s Dansschool – this one is so good for kids or teens (or adults!) who love to dance. An amazing dance school in The Netherlands makes videos of their high-energy dances to popular songs. Check out the Kids Dances section for fun routines featuring their talented students, to songs by artists like Meghan Trainor, Justin Timberlake, and Justin Bieber. If your kid likes dancing, there’s a good chance they’ll love these.
  • Build a fort – provide them with some supplies (blankets, pillows, chairs, boxes, etc) and then let them do the building. Sometimes they’re excited enough to be in a fort that you can pass them a flashlight and a book and they’ll happily read to themselves for a
  • Indoor snowball fight with socks or crumpled paper, or sock toss: fill socks with beans or rice, try to score by throwing them into a big pot or laundry basket.

Music

  • BroadwayHD (some options are better for older kids) offers a streaming service of 300 musical theatre performances, with a 7-day free trial.
  • Lincoln Center at Home livestreams its #concertsforkids program, broadcasting concerts on its website, Facebook, and Youtube at different times.
  • Mr. Jon and Friends hosts music and puppets every day at 10:30 am EST.
  • On Weekends,No-Nap Happy Hour livestreams family-friendly music performances on Facebook Live.
  • Peanut Butter and Jam Sessions: preschool-themed classical sessions by Linton Chamber Music 10 am EST on Facebook.

And 1 bonus activity:

  • Have an Easter egg hunt! You don’t have to use plastic easter eggs, you can also just hide little treasures around your house (we’re using small foil-wrapped chocolates and 1 little toy for each kid, but anything smallish works). If it helps, you can wrap the items in  colored construction paper or tie them with a ribbon so they know what to look for. Give your kids a basket or any container to collect as many as they can.

We hope you enjoy some of these activities, and get inspired to make the best of your time stuck inside. We’d love to hear what your family’s favorite indoor activities for kids are, please share them with us in the comments!