15 Fun indoor exercises for kids to keep your children active when you can’t go outside!
If you have a child under the age of 5, you know how energetic they are.
But did you know that children (3-5 years) need physical activity every day throughout the day for growth and development.
Children not only need a lot of movement; they also need to vary their exercises.
Therefore, it is essential to devote time to unstructured and active play and to plan a host of simple and fun activities that will motivate them to move and develop their skills in different ways.
This list of 15 activities is designed to enhance your kid’s play session with a friend or its half-day with a caretaker, or even the whole day for toddlers attending family daycare.
No matter the situation, you’ll have some ideas on hand to keep kids entertained for a good time despite their relatively short attention spans.
15 Physical Activities that Work Even When you Don’t Have Much Space at Home
- Online activities
There are many physical activity sessions posted online. Your child can do yoga, Zumba, dance, and even practice martial arts by following a virtual teacher’s instructions. Short activities that are fun are a good start.
- Move inside
Is the weather not good? Having your offspring limited to around the house may be more difficult. If you have a large space, you can organize games similar to those offered for the outdoors, but using indoor equipment such as party balloons, foam balls, cushions, and blankets.
- The bucket game
This is an outdoor or wet area (e.g., large shower) activity! You will need a plastic beaker and two buckets. Place the small bucket a short distance from the large bucket, which you will have filled with water. Using the beaker, the child must draw water from the large bucket to fill the small one. To add a degree of challenge, make a couple of small holes in the beaker, or have the child shut their eyes as they fill the beaker and carry water from one bucket to another.
- Watch out for sharks.
Cover the floor of your living room (this is the shark-infested ocean) with foam tiles or towels (which you will stick down with masking tape). Your child is encouraged to jump from one tile or towel to another without getting bitten by sharks.
- Throwing the bag of beans
Hand-sized bean bags are easy for kids to grab and throw. Make targets using laundry baskets or hoops for children to throw their bags at. This is an activity that can be undertaken both indoors and outdoors.
- The egg race
This is a game for developing hand-eye coordination and balance. Give each child a large spoon and a hard-boiled, chocolate, or plastic egg. The game (both inside and outside) is to move from start to finish without dropping the egg.
- Walk on the clouds
On the ground, make a journey with couch cushions, decorative cushions, and/or pillows, and ask the child to “walk on the clouds” from one end of the journey to the other without touching the ground. It may sound easy, but it will enable them to practice their balance.
- Balance game
The children are challenged to balance a bag of beans on their heads and walk from one point to another without letting it fall. When they seem to be confident of achieving their goal, lengthen the course a little or make it a little more difficult by adding zigzags or circles or even objects to bypass.
- Crush the bubbles
Bubble wrap is not just for wrapping fragile items. Get yourself a roll that you can take out when the weather isn’t cooperative, and encourage your child to step or even jump on the little bubbles to pop them. It can be more fun with bare feet!
- Drums and Trumpets
Whether it’s with real musical instruments or with pots and pans and cooking utensils, kids love to make noise. Celebrate together by making rhythmic percussion music to entertain yourselves.
- Fringe curtain
Purchase a suitable decorative fringe curtain at the dollar store or party supplies store (or a streamer) and hang them in an open door frame. Invite the children to walk through the streamers with their eyes shut, blowing puffs of air to blow the streamer away from their faces. And, let your child walk over the fringes or streamers by running, bouncing, or dancing.
- Pirouette competition
Place a mattress in the middle of a fairly open room (no furniture or walls near the mattress). On the mattress, encourage the children to do balancing games, pirouettes, gymnastic movements, or even rolls – and laugh when they land on the mattress.
- The water keel
This is another outdoor or wet area game. Each player fills a plastic bottle with water. Draw lots to find who will be the first to throw the ball. The participants are at a suitable distance from each other. The players place their bottles in front of them. In turn, they kick the ball to knock over the opponents’ bottles. When a player’s bottle has fallen over, he or she must run to get the ball. Only then can they put their bottle back up. When a player’s bottle is empty, they withdraw from the game. The game is over when there is only one bottle left with any water in it.
- The course
Depending on where you are, create an obstacle course. Jump over objects (cardboard boxes, balls, cushions, hoops), walk around furniture or trees, and crawl under a table or bench. Repeat your route a specified number of times. The object of the game is to find your personal best time to complete the course safely.
- Dance for the camera
An adult uses a smartphone or camera. Alternatively, the child stands in front of a computer equipped with a webcam. Put on your favorite music and invent a dance. If there are two or three kids, create a dance set together in which each has a part. It’s easy: the possibilities are endless. Share the video with your friends. You will see: they will all want to try it in turn, and you will laugh together at your comic movements.
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