All you need is a little creativity, a little bit of time, and a lot of patience to turn any rainy day or indoor play date into one of the most fun days ever. We’ve put together a list of our favourite fun indoor activities for kids that almost every child will love. We’ll also tell you why play is important and also why it’s important to limit their screen time too.
Tips to Use Before Starting Activities
Before you sit your kids down in front of the activity table, it’s best to follow these tips to ensure that the fun indoor activities you choose, stay that way.
Prepare an area in your home for the activity to take place. We recommend choosing an area that can be easily cleaned, like a dining room table or a plastic table in a playroom.
If you’re using paint pens, make sure you have a tablecloth down that can be washed in the washing machine easily after the fun is done.
Prepare all the ingredients (so to speak) beforehand. Get everything you need for the activity ready, so that it’s all waiting for the children when they sit down. Kids get highly irritable waiting for you, so avoid irritation by having everything waiting for them rather.
Make sure you’ve cleared a space of time in your diary so that you can focus on the children and help them with the fun indoor activities. It’s not ideal to be rushing to answer your phone or keeping one eye on your emails while you’re doing these activities.
Relax, enjoy and have fun with your kids. Also, don’t worry about the mess, OMO Messy Play Zone has you covered!
The Best Indoor Activity Ideas
Whether you’ve got a 5-year-old or a 10-year-old, these fun indoor children’s activities can be modified to suit their age and ability levels. We’ve split our favourite fun kid indoor activities into creative, physical and sensory games so that you can choose the most appropriate ones for your kids. Don’t play all of them in one day, it could be over-stimulating and tiring for your little one, rather select one or two games from each category to try at one time.
Creative Games
Just because it might be raining outside, doesn’t mean you can play creative games. Try these fun indoor kids’ activities at home, just make sure you’ve laid down a lot of newspaper to mop up any spills and put your little ones in older clothing.
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Body tracing can be a great way to foster a connection with your child. This particular body tracing activity is beneficial for kids to learn about their bodies.
This fun paint-mixing activity helps your child to learn the names of different colours and how colours can be mixed to make a new colour.
Physical Games
Physical games are a great way to get some energy out of the kid’s when they can’t go outside and play. Choose an area in your home where you have a larger space like a lounge or a dining room. Move the furniture to the edge of the room and hide away any really valuable belongings, to avoid them getting knocked over and broken.
Sense Balance
Another version of the Floor is a Lava game that every child loves. This sensory activity develops thinking skills and strong bodies with a fun-filled, barefoot obstacle course.
Practice target skills and learn about basketball and netball. This is also a great way to learn to count and keep score too
Sensory Games
Sensory games will stimulate your child’s mind and his senses, helping her learn about her body in a safe, fun way. These games are especially fun indoor things to do with toddlers.
Develop your child’s self-awareness and understanding of the senses by exploring different sensory experiences.
A snack-time activity to help your child practice counting. Combine every child’s favourite time of the day – snack time – with this counting game to develop their math skills and improve their memory.
Another great fun indoor activity idea is making a fort with pillows! Who doesn’t remember building your own fort and staying inside for hours, playing. Read our blog on Indoor Fun For Kids: How To Build A Fort With Pillows and Blankets now.
How to Wash Clothing and Fabric After Indoor Activities?
One of the things we hear a lot from parents at Cleanipedia is that they’re often to scared to do messy, fun things indoors (or even out) because of the stains that their kids could get on their clothing. Luckily OMO believes in the Importance of Messy Play.
With the OMO range of laundry detergents, getting rid of stains from paint, pens, ink and other everyday things, is completely doable. Simply use a capful of OMO Auto Washing Powder or Liquid Detergent in your washing machine for great results.
Why is it Important to Limit Screen Time for Children?
Excessive screen time has been linked to many brain and social development problems in older children. Excessive screen time can actually affect the cognitive development in a child’s brain as well as their gross and fine motor skills too. It is thought that no more than 1 hour of screen time a day should be allowed for children up to five, and for children between five and ten it should be limited to around two hours a day. Here are some tips for reducing screen time in your home:
Talk to your children about the fact that you are implementing a specific cap on screen time every day, so that can begin to understand and accept it.
After a few days, begin the limited screen time and set a timer on your clock to time it. Tell them that when the timer goes off, screen time is over, and no questions are asked.
Create “screen-free” zones in your home, including the dining room table, and their bedrooms, so as to encourage family-time discussions when eating and socialising. Not allowing screens in their bedrooms can also be a major safety precaution for older kids.
At OMO we believe that dirt is good. Every stain represents an experience. Encourage your kids to get messy and have fun and help them become happy, healthy, confident kids.