With the recent daily downpours of rain and the summer holidays fast approaching, we thought we’d share some handy tips for keeping your children active and having fun indoors.
Indoor dance festival or Musical chairs.
These are brilliant indoor activities for children of all ages and it’s simple to do! Just turn on your favourite music and let the little ones jump, wiggle, and dance their little hearts out.
They may need a little help getting started so get your groove on! Show them how it’s done!
Choose Children’s Exercise APPS
Check out apps like GoNoodle App or Cosmic kids:
The GoNoodle app has great songs and dance moves designed for children to get them moving and dancing indoors and is free. Cosmic kids teaches children yoga moves to help them chill out or keep calm and is also free.
Indoor Games
Some examples could be hopscotch or obstacle courses.. This can all be done in the house but you will need to get creative with space!
Use masking tape:
- Jumping between lines
- Obstacle course
- Balancing along the lines
Use balloons:
- The children can race from one end of the room to the other holding a balloon between their knees.
- Hit a balloon or a beach ball up in the air and see how long you can keep hitting it back and forth without letting it hit the ground.
Races You Can Have Indoors
- Even if you don’t have much room to run in your house there might be space for a few races.
- Balance a hard-boiled egg on a spoon and race each other across the room.
- Pillowcase races similar to potato sack races. (Hint: use pillowcases you aren’t that fond of in case they don’t survive.
Animal Walks
Animals walks are a great way to help your kids be physically active indoors.
Animals walks can be done as races or just moving around the room. It’s fun and great imaginative play too. Basically, the children go around the room “walking” like different animals.
To get your children moving, try these animal walks (then add your own!)
- Bear: Walk on all fours, legs straight, bum in the air like a bear. Feel free to stand up and roar occasionally
- Snake: Slither along the floor on your belly like a snake.
- Kangaroo: Hop, hop, hop across the room like a kangaroo.
- Crab: Crawl across the floor on all fours, with your back towards the floor, and your tummy and face towards the ceiling.
- Bird: Walk around arms flapping like the wings of your kid’s favorite bird or insect.
- Dinosaur: Stomp around the room like a T-Rex. Big feet, little arms.
Bring the Outdoor Toys Inside
One great way for children to be active inside is to bring some of the outdoor toys in. If you have younger children with ride on trikes or cars, these toys can easily be brought in the house on bad weather days for indoor physical activity and fun. Small slides can be fun too.
Scavenger Hunt
With a little planning, a scavenger hunt can be a really fun (and active) way to play indoors. Even older children can enjoy this as they can plan one for each other.
Be sure to send your scavengers up the stairs and down or from one end of the house to other several times to get them moving. Hide objects and have your children run around looking for them. Wooden pegs with their initials marked on can be simple for younger children too.
Hula hoops and skipping ropes
Hula hoops and skipping ropes have been helping children be physically active for generations.
Turn on some music and let your kids swirl their hips and hoops or skip that rope indoors.