Family Fun Activities: Indoor Games for Children

No school today!

I asked the kids what they wanted to do. The kids yelled back quickly, “Family games!” My kids love our annual outdoor tradition of family relay races. However, today might rain so we decided to create a new list and bring the games indoors. It was time for start a new family tradition: Indoor Family Game Day!

We needed to brainstorm ideas. I gave the kids a piece of paper and asked them to start creating a list of game ideas while I started one, too. I was pleased to see that they kept electronics off the list! I reviewed both lists and I was able to come up with the agenda for the day.

We reviewed the rules:

• Play Fair
• No crying
• Have fun

My camera is charged and it was time to start the games!

Our kids love incorporating snacks in our games! I decided to hang a rope from the 2^nd floor railing extending down to the great room. Using a ponytail holder, I attached a giant campfire marshmallow to the rope. We started out by having my daughter eating the marshmallow without using her hands. I quickly realized this was going to take all day. I let her twin brother jump in and they were able to work together to eat the marshmallow. Their turn ended when the marshmallow was too small to stay on the rope with the ponytail holder.

The next group had three members. They worked together balancing the marshmallow against each other and quickly ate the marshmallow.

As the kids prepared for the next game, my two year old asked for a second turn by himself, this time using his hands.

Our kitchen has a shuttered window separating it from the great room. It is a perfect ledge for a puppet show. The kids scurried upstairs to get their stuffed animals. I gave them five minutes to prepare a puppet show. When they were ready, I thought I had the best seat in the house for a puppet show. Instead, I watched a bunch of giggly kids and dancing stuffed animals.

The show was better than I expected!

It is about a week before Halloween so we needed to get some holiday festivities included in our indoor games. The kids wanted to do a mummy wrap. We decided that my four sons would wrap up my daughter. The boys’ faces were super smiley getting to finally wrap up their sister! She was giggly underneath the toilet paper, too.

They had fun showing me the end result: their mummy sister!

We turned on some music and the kids practiced their talents. When practice time was up, we watched one at a time as the kids showed off any exercise related talent that made sense inside the house.

Adding this rule is key!

My two year old decided to fight the rope used from the marshmallow eating contest and the rest of the kids showed off some gymnastics skills.

At the end, we played their favorite song again and they all just got to jump around dancing.

It was time to mellow out a bit. My son suggested art time. We decided to make Dad a welcome home card. He had been gone all week and they were eager for him to return. Each child took a piece a piece of paper and shared the pencils and crayons. Their cards included “Welcome Home!”, “We Miss You!”, “We Love You!” and a picture including a rocket ship and a mummy.

My husband will be excited to see his ‘mail’ tomorrow when gets home!

We lined up six chairs, I took a giant rope and made a chair maze.

The goal: try to get through the maze without touching the string or just slithering along the floor.

The kids weren’t able to make it through without touching the string. However, they had fun lining up and taking turns making attempts through the maze.

I decided to leave the chair maze up for a couple of hours. The kids continued to have fun challenging themselves in the maze.

“Go get your swim suits on!”

The kids went crazy. They thought we were going swimming. All day they wanted a contest for holding their breath. We decided to combine bath time with the breath holding and crazy hair contest.

Each child had two tries to see how long they could hold their breath under water. After their turn, they had to wash their hair and make it look crazy! They had fun counting loudly as each took turns holding their breath and laughed at the hair creations.

Best of all, they are clean and baths are done!

The games were over for me. They decided to do one more by playing hide n go seek in the house.

Today was an absolute success. My kids are usually great at making up things to do, but they love when we organize a couple of games, too.

Next time all your kids are home all day, try a couple of our indoor game ideas.

Our family will definitely do indoor games again. I love knowing that my kids are old enough to remember these childhood activities.

Days like today are priceless.