Unfortunately, the colder months in Utah aren’t always a winter wonderland. With inconsistent air quality, seasonal illnesses, and cold, gloomy winters, you and your child might find yourselves stuck indoors more often than you’d like.
In addition to cabin fever, spending too much time indoors can lead to a drop in physical activity, seasonal depression, and good old-fashioned boredom. Keeping kids active, happy, and entertained can be an ongoing challenge, especially when battling the allure of the television, tablet, or smartphone. Arm yourself with these 15 active games for children to keep your kids happy, entertained, and active over the winter months.
1) Scavenger Hunt
Everybody loves looking for hidden treasures, even if those treasures are ordinary household items. With a bit of creativity, scavenger hunts are great because they can be just as fun indoors as outdoors. Scavenger hunts are easy to customize for your child’s age and interests, and they are a good way to incorporate problem-solving and critical thinking while having fun.
When designing your scavenger hunt, the trick is finding balance. Make it challenging enough to keep your child engaged but not frustrating. Send them searching for concrete items like a favorite toy and more abstract requests like “something with eyes,” which could be a potato as easily as a family pet. Make the list, arm your child with a pencil, and set them loose.
This is a perfect example of active games for kids that combine movement with imaginative play.
2) Obstacle Course
If you can’t take your kids to the playground, bring the playground to your kids. Let your children help brainstorm ideas and help with construction to bring an obstacle course to life. Often, building an obstacle course is just as fun as running it.
Keep things safe and fun using soft materials like blankets, pillows, cardboard, yoga mats, and couch cushions. Drape some toilet tissue from wall to wall for army crawls, balance along a rolled-up rug, and don’t forget that the floor is lava!
3) Giant Game Board
Turn your living room into a giant game board by taking out the masking tape and putting lines down on the floor. Your child will likely be delighted at the idea of marking the floor or the walls. Make a game of it and let them help. With a few lines of tape and some creativity, you can transform an ordinary floor into a hopscotch arena, a race track, or a giant version of snakes and ladders. Your living room could become a soccer pitch or a tiny city under attack from giants. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and how much tape you have on hand.
4) Dance Party
Music is universal. It transcends language and allows parents to connect with their children even before they learn to speak. It’s also a great way to get moving and burn off extra energy while having fun. Take a moment to talk with your children about music. Share your favorite tunes with them and ask about the music they like. You might find a new way to connect with your little ones through music and dance.
5) Relay Races
Promote physical activity, teamwork, and coordination with indoor relay races. Walking backward to the finish line, balancing a small ball on a spoon and carefully running to pass it to another person, or racing while balancing a book on your head all add focus and suspense to a race. Pillowcase sack races are a classic favorite, where your child can hop from one end of the room to the other, or cardboard box races, where they “row” themselves across the floor using just their arms, bringing laughter and a fun twist to a race.
Turn cleaning into a relay race by having your child run to tag a parent, pick up five things, and then race back to tag their teammate, making cleanup a fun and active adventure while still getting the job done.
6) Put On A Play Or Make A Movie
Kids are born storytellers, actors, and pretenders. If you have a child who likes to spin yarn, this is a great time to encourage them. Help them to come up with a story, plan out scenes, and make props and costumes out of household items. When you’re finished, stage a production for the family or pull out the camera to send your creation to family and friends.
7) Classic Childhood Games
Games like Hide-and-Seek, Duck, Duck, Goose, Simon Says, Red Light, Green Light, and The Floor is Lava have entertained kids for generations, and for good reason. These classic childhood games can instantly transform any room or space into a fun zone for kids without any extra equipment needed. They not only spark imagination but also encourage physical activity and social interaction.
8) Tag Team Puzzles
Jigsaw puzzles help kids learn to problem solve, follow instructions, and see large jobs through to completion, one step at a time. For puzzles with bigger pieces, hide them around the room and take turns searching for them one at a time. When you find one, run back to the table to add the piece to the puzzle and tag the next person to get a puzzle piece.
9) Animal Walks
Animal walks encourage imaginative play while developing coordination, balance, and strength. Have kids walk or race across the room, moving like different animals (crab walk, bear crawl, frog jump, snake slithering, etc). Let them use their imagination to make up walks for more abstract animal situations like a squirrel carrying a mound of nuts, a penguin jumping over an iceberg (a pillow works!), or a sloth peeling an orange.
10) Friendly Fitness Competitions
Kids love to mimic the things their parents do. Involve the whole family in push-ups, jumping jacks, somersaults, long jumps (use tape and mark the hall), planks, and lunges. Keep score and make it a fun, friendly competition, encouraging kids to set goals and improve their records.
11) Balloon Volleyball
A simple balloon can keep kids entertained for hours. Balloon volleyball can be as simple as blowing up a balloon and trying to keep it off the ground by hitting it from person to person. You can set up a “net” using a piece of string or a rolled-up blanket on the ground. And if you want to amp it up a bit more, make paper plate paddles by taping a plastic spoon to the back of a paper plate for a handle. These makeshift paddles add a playful challenge as they try to hit the balloon over the net without it touching the ground.
12) Paper Plate Skating
Ice skating is a great winter activity, but ice skating rinks aren’t always easy to get to. Create your own skating experience using paper plates. Put a paper plate under each foot and let your child “skate” around the floor (the smoother the floor, the better).
13) Indoor Camping Trip
Just because it’s cold out and you’re stuck inside, it doesn’t mean you can’t still plan a fun camping trip. Put up a tent in your living room or build a fort from pillows, couch cushions, and blankets. To really make it feel like you’re camping, cook smores on the stove and tell spooky stories with the lights off.
14) Indoor Track
Again, masking tape is your friend! Use tape to make squiggly lines, loops, or zig-zag paths across the floor, and challenge kids to stay on the tape as they walk, run, or balance. You can add fun signs along the track, like “Stand on One Foot” or “Jump Like a Kangaroo.” If you have a room where scooters or roller skates are safe, the track becomes an exciting course to navigate on wheels, adding a new level of fun and movement.
15) Action Storytime
A good book can transport you from your living room to a faraway land filled with adventure. Bring the book to life by acting out certain parts. If the character is rolling down a hill on skates, encourage your child to roll across the room. If they are playing basketball, have your child jump and pretend to throw the ball. If they are climbing a tower, your child can climb the stairs or climb around the room (while staying safe, of course). The options for acting out a scene are endless allowing your child’s imagination to bring the book to life.
