Children love to be outdoors! Be it playing with their friends in the nearby playground or chasing butterflies in the park, children are happiest when they can be outside. But sometimes, they may be forced to stay indoors for various reasons, including unfavorable weather.
Parents would agree how difficult it is to keep a restless child entertained while indoors. But there is always an easy way out – try out some indoor games!
Most kids nowadays prefer to watch cartoons or play video games while at home, much to the parents’ annoyance. Having fun and interesting indoor games list to keep them busy will be pretty helpful to keep them off from being glued to the mobile screens.
Below we have made a list of some indoor game names that your kids are sure to love. Try out a new game every day, and who knows, soon your kids may be looking forward to their indoor game sessions instead of watching TV or playing on your mobile phone!
Pictionary
The first and one of the most preferred games in our indoor games list, Pictionary can easily keep restless kids free from boredom.
You need to be divided into two or more teams to play this game. You would also require a board for drawing, a bunch of cards with the names of different things to be drawn, and some crayons or colored pencils.
The game is simple – one person from a team has to come up and select a card from the bunch and draw it on the board. The other members have to guess the word from the drawing within a fixed time limit. The faster you guess the right word, the more points you get! This continues until all the members from each team have got a chance to draw.
In the end, the team with maximum points is declared the winner. You can also add a small prize for the winning team to make it more interesting. And no, you (or your kids) don’t need to be a pro at drawing to enjoy the game! Guessing the correct word from weirdly drawn doodles is more fun than it seems to be!
Hide And Seek
Kids love to play hide and seek! Best played in a group, one kid (the seeker) closes their eyes while counting (till 50 or 100, for example), while all the others hide. The seeker then has to try to find the others. The one found first becomes the next seeker, while the one found last wins!
Usually, we play it outdoors because there are more places to hide, but you can also play it indoors on a rainy day!
If you are playing hide and seek indoors, the easiest way is to ask the seeker to go into a room and count, while all the others can hide in any place around the house. While the kids will be restricted in a smaller area, it can be a lot of fun as they explore around the house to find the perfect hiding spot!
But make sure that you do keep an eye on the kids so that they do not try to hide in potentially dangerous places (such as inside cupboards or cabinets). Also, we recommend that you keep the kitchen out of bounds for the kids to avoid the chance of unwanted accidents.
Musical Chairs
Our personal favorite! Musical chairs are perfect for parties as well as a cozy evening at home with kids. It makes it to our indoor games list for mainly two reasons. Firstly, it is a fuss-free game. You just need some chairs and music, that’s all! And secondly, kids and adults both love this game!
The game is pretty simple, take some chairs and arrange them in a circle in the middle of the room, leaving enough space for people to move around it. You need to arrange one chair less than the number of people playing the game.
Now switch on some music and let all the players circle the chairs till the music plays. And once you pause the music, everyone has to move fast and sit on one of the chairs. The person who remains standing is out of the game.
Keep decreasing the number of chairs after each round as the game progresses. The person who manages to sit on the last chair is the winner! This game is ideal for teaching the concepts of fair play, patience, and sportsmanship to kids from a young age.
Scrabble
If you want your child to have fun and learn at the same time, what can be better than a game of scrabble? This word-building game can help your child in expanding their vocabulary while also improving their spellings.
Board games like scrabble are great for spending lazy afternoons with your family. Either 2 or 4 players can play it, each of whom has to build words on the board by joining letters together. Each person earns points based on the words they come up with, and the one with the most points emerges as the winner!
Playing scrabble regularly can not only improve your child’s knowledge but also make them interested in the English language. It also helps in their mental development and strengthens memory.
This is especially effective if your kid is in the early years of school, as this is the age when they are most curious about learning new things (including words)!
Puzzles
Puzzles are another way to aid in your kid’s cognitive development. And what we love about puzzles is the huge variety that you get to choose from! You can get mathematical puzzles, letter puzzles, picture puzzles, and frame puzzles, to name a few types.
As a result, you get to choose one depending on the interests of your kids. Puzzles are great for keeping your kids occupied for hours, figuring out how to solve them. And you can join them too in case it’s a bit difficult for them!
And no worries if you do not have a puzzle game at home – you can make one by yourself! It is really simple. First, you just need to draw or stick a picture on a piece of cardboard and then mark it just like the jigsaw pieces available in the stores. Cut along the marked lines, and voila! You have your very own personalized puzzle for your kids to solve!
Treasure Hunt
Here is the perfect indoor game for kids who love a bit of an adventure! This game is a lifesaver if you are stuck in the house due to bad weather, with your kids continuously grumbling because they can’t go out.
Cheer them up in a jiffy by announcing a treasure hunting game! Choose an item for ‘treasure’ and build a set of clues, each of which leads to the next clue and finally to the treasure! You kids will have a blast looking for what you have hidden!
Although it does need some effort on your part in setting up the clues, it is worth it when you see the excited faces running around the house looking for the clues to the lost ‘treasure.’ And in case they find the clues too complicated, you can also drop in a few extra clues to help them!
Blowing Bubbles
Another of our favorites on this indoor games list, blowing bubbles, can keep your kids happily occupied for hours at a stretch. Let’s be honest, even we as adults love to blow and pop those beautiful bubbles.
While we usually blow bubbles outdoors to see them shine with the colors of the rainbow in the sun, blowing them indoors is equally fun! And if you have a kid whining to go outside, this game can shift their attention quickly!
Making the bubble solution is super easy. You just have to mix some dishwashing liquid with water, and your work is complete. And if you want your bubbles to be stranger, add some glycerin or corn syrup to the mixture and mix well!
And the best part is you can play multiple games using bubbles. Try challenging your kids with who can blow the biggest bubble or who pops the most number of bubbles! Not only your kid, but you are also sure to enjoy yourself with the game.
And no need to worry if you don’t have a bubble blowing tool. You can use available items like straws or plastic funnels for the same. And if you can’t find any of these, use your thumb and index finger to form a ring, and blow away!
Twenty Questions
We know that kids are very inquisitive, always asking questions about this and that (which can sometimes be annoying too). But why not engage them in a game where they can win by asking questions!
Twenty questions is a guessing game where one person chooses an object, person, or place, while the others have to find out the chosen word. Best played in a group, the others can ask up to twenty questions to identify the name of the chosen person, place, or object. The player who guesses the correct answer gets to choose the next word, and if nobody guesses, then the answer is revealed after twenty questions are over.
The best part about this game is that you don’t need to prepare anything for playing – simply sit down in a group, choose which person gets to choose a word first, and let others start guessing!
Balloon Games
Worried that your kid will wreck the house while playing with their ball indoors? Try substituting their ball with balloons! Blow a couple and let your child play to their heart’s content!
Get creative -There are so many fun ways to play with balloons! You can compete with your kid on keeping the balloon from touching the floor for the longest, or even have a balloon football match!
Or if you want to keep your kid occupied at one place, you can take a bunch of balloons and let them blow with you! You would have a room filled with balloons and a happy child at the same time! Doesn’t that sound great?
Although there are lesser possibilities of accidents, we recommend that you put away easily breakable things like vases or glass showpieces while playing with balloons to ensure that those remain intact!
Hot Potato
Here is a perfect game for all indoor parties! Say goodbye to boredom instantly with another of our favorites on the indoor games list.
You don’t need an actual hot potato to play this game. Any small object like a ball, a cushion, or even a water-filled balloon can do the trick (although we don’t mind using a potato either)! The game is best for playing in a group, where all the players sit in a circle facing each other. Now switch on some music and let the ball pass from one person to the other in one direction.
When the music stops, the person who has the ball gets eliminated, while the others continue playing more rounds until there is a winner. It is one of the best games if you want to ensure that the kids aren’t indulging in any mischief, as you can easily keep an eye on them!
Chess
Playing chess is excellent for enhancing your kid’s thinking and strategizing abilities. The game can be played by two people at a time, with each player attempting to checkmate their opponent’s king.
One of the ideal games for brain development, playing chess, is also perfect for bonding with your kids. This is because you slowly teach them the ways to play the game effectively.
A game of chess can keep your child free from boredom and help develop various life skills. For example, your child learns to have patience, understands the importance of planning, and shows improvement in their concentration and analytical power.
Playing chess regularly with your kid can keep them away from playing addictive video games too, which can be bad for their eyesight.
Marble Games
Many of us played with marbles as kids – we considered those colorful balls no less than treasures and loved to show them off to our friends! Marbles are perfect for an indoor game session with kids, especially because there is no limit to the different types of games you could invent with them.
Our favorite is marble shooting, which two or more players can play. Draw a moderately big circle on the floor with a piece of chalk and put some marbles in the middle of it. Now, give a bigger marble to a player and let them flick it towards the marbles within the circle. If any of the marbles within comes outside the circle after being hit, the player gets to keep it. Otherwise, they will wait for their next turn.
Continue the game till all the marbles are collected. The player with the most number of collected marbles wins!
Tic-tac-toe
Tic-tac-toe is one of the simplest games you can play to pass your time, but you’ll be surprised to know that it can also help improve strategic thinking in children.
To play the game, you need to draw a 3×3 square grid on a piece of paper. It is a two-player game – one chooses O as their symbol, while the other gets X. The players’ goal is to get their symbols in three consecutive rows, diagonally, vertically, or horizontally. The player who manages to do this first wins! And in case nobody gets it right, the match is declared a draw.
While your kid may find it challenging to win initially (given that you already know the strategy of winning), with practice, they will start figuring out the right moves and beat you!
Rock Paper Scissors
Last but not least, in our indoor games name list, rock paper scissors is a simple hand game that you can play with your kids anywhere.
The game is simple, two people stand face to face and randomly choose any of the three-hand movements between a rock (a fist), paper (a flat palm), and scissors (putting out two fingers). The person who wins gets one point.
The rules are as follows:
- Rock vs. scissors – rock smashes scissors and wins
- Scissor vs. paper -scissors cuts paper and wins
- Paper vs. rock – paper covers rock and wins
And if both players show the same symbol, it’s a tie! You can decide to have ten rounds and decide the winner based on who gets more points!
Conclusion
We hope that this indoor games list will come in handy the next time your child is stuck at home due to the rain. Also, your kid can play any of the exciting group-based games mentioned above with their friends at their birthday party too!
The best part about playing indoor games is that you have all the freedom to design a new game as per the things available in the house and as per your kid’s age. So put on your thinking cap and tweak the above games a bit or make an entirely new one to make your kids have a fun-filled day.
Founder and a 36-year old mother of one who has gone through the usual problems of parenting herself and shares her own experiences through this blog. Ruby is a great writer who researches well before putting forth facts in the articles.