27+ Active Indoor Activities for Kids

Looking for fun indoor activities for your kids? Then this list of active indoor activities for kids is a great place to start.

When your kids have been stuck inside for too long, they end up with extra energy to burn. Kids with pent up energy end up grumpy, whiny, mean, and fussy. This big list of indoor appropriate, active activities will help your kids expend some for that extra energy.

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These active activities will get your kids moving even when they are stuck inside all day. Sometimes finding indoor fun for kids is challenging, but this list makes it easy!

You can choose the activity you think is best for your kids in the moment, or you can use this printable. Simply cut the activities apart, fold them, and place them in a container. Kids can draw out a surprise active activity when they are getting restless.

Active Indoor Activities for Kids

Indoor Sports

Balloon Volleyball. This is a favorite for kids of all ages. Stretch a sheet or a string between two chairs and blow up a balloon for your kids to bop back and forth.
Indoor Bowling. Stack plastic cups or toilet paper rolls in a pyramid as the bowling pins. You can also create a bowling lane with two parallel lines of painters tape.
Indoor Hockey. Wearing socks as skates, use brooms to knock a ball or balloon into boxes tipped onto their sides.
Balloon Basketball. Place empty bins or baskets around the room and blow up a couple of balloons. Challenge your kids to see who can get their balloon in a basket with the least amount of hits.
Figure Skating. Clear a large area where your children won’t bump into anything or get splinters. For speedy skating, place a paper plate, a piece of wax paper, or a dryer sheet underneath each foot.

Indoor Games

Indoor Hopscotch. Mark boxes and numbers on the floor in your hallway with masking tape and use a beanbag or other soft object as a rock.
Limbo. Lay a broom across two chairs or have two children hold the ends of a broom, rope, or other long object. Play some music to increase the fun!
Animal Charades. Fill a bag with little toy animals. One child picks an animal from the bag without looking or showing it to the other children. He/she must then act out that animal while the other children try to guess.
Ping Pong Tic-Tac-Toe. Set-up plastic cups on a table in a 3×3 square. Have two children stand on either side of the table and bounce their ping pong balls into the cups. The first to get three in a row wins.
The Floor is Lava. Children love this simple game, the object of which is to move around the room without touching the floor by hopping from pillow to pillow or by crawling across furniture.
Penguin Race. Place empty boxes at one end of a room and give each child a balloon or ball. They must waddle across the room with the balloon or ball between their legs and drop it in the boxes. If they drop the balloon or ball before they reach the boxes, they must go back to the start line.
Active Games. There are a number of fun children’s games that require activity. A few of our favorites are Twister, Dancing Eggs, and Hullabaloo.
Doorway Spiderweb. Create a web of painters tape across a doorway. Challenge your kids to throw light-weight objects, such as balled up pieces of paper, balloons, or paper airplanes and see how many they can get to stick.
Potato Sack Race. Substitute pillow cases for the potato sacks, and your kids will have a blast!
Balloon Balance. This game can be played in several variations. Simply have your kids see who can balance their balloon on their hand, head, or foot the longest. Turn on some music and tell your kids to balance balloons while they dance. Or create a start and a finish line and have your kids race without letting the balloon fall off the back of their hand.
Parachute. This is a game that children love! Have them stretch out a sheet between them and shake it up and down to create waves. Place a bunch of small balls on it and challenge them to see how long they can keep the balls on the sheet while they are waving it or how fast they can bounce them off.
Hide-and-Go-Seek. This classic game is a great way to keep kids active and happy!
Sardines. If your kids are burnt-out of regular hide-and-go-seek, try Sardines which is basically hide-and-go-seek in reverse. One child hides, and everyone else is a seeker. When someone discovers the person who is hidden, they hide with them until everyone is packed into the same hiding place like sardines!
Create Your Own Work-Out Game. Write different workouts on flashcards (jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, etc.) and place them in a pile. Have your children take turns drawing a card and then rolling a dice. They must do the workout they drew as many times as the number they rolled. (For example, if your child draws a card that says “jumping jacks,” and they roll a five, they must do five jumping jacks.)

Scavenger Hunts

Children love scavenger hunts. The best part is, while your kids are happily running around the house searching for items, you can get some work done. Here is a list of different scavenger hunt ideas:

Hide clues around the house that lead to a “treasure” (maybe a yummy snack).
Tell your kids to find objects around the house that start with the letters of the alphabet.
Flashlight Scavenger Hunt. Something about using flashlights to find objects in a dark room absolutely delights children!
Make a list of objects for your kids to find. For increased difficulty, the list could be riddles (for example, “an object you use to write on paper”). Here is a sample list you can print out.

Indoor Obstacle Courses

Create a Living Room Obstacle Course. Children love to create their own course as much as they love actually doing it! Crawl under a blanket hung over two chairs, run zig-zags through a line of plastic cups or other objects, hop over pillows…the possibilities are endless.
Create a Hallway Laser Course. Use painters tape to hang yarn or crepe paper between the walls of your hallway. Create a complex web of zig-zagging strips down the hallway and challenge your kids to get to the other side without touching the “lasers.”

Other Indoor Active Activities

Throw a Dance Party. Tune into a family or kids radio station or play a favorite playlist, turn-up the volume, and let the kids dance it out!
Do a Kid’s Work-Out. If you have an Amazon Alexa, there is an Animal Workout skill that younger children love and a 7-Minute Workout skill that is great for older children. Also, YouTube has several work-out videos for kids.
Do a Yoga for Kids Video.
Hula-hoops. If you have a room that is large enough and free of breakable items, children love hula-hoops, and they are a great way to keep them active.
Dance-Along Videos. Children of all ages love to sing and dance. KIDz Bop Kids has several videos on YouTube that kids can dance along to while listening to some of their favorite songs. And while they are happily dancing and singing (and tiring themselves out), you can get some work done.
Jump on the bed. Or drag a mattress onto the floor and jump on that.

When your kids have been cooped up inside for too long, pick one of these fun activities to help release some of that pent up energy.

Don’t forget your Active Activity printable! It comes with 3 pages of activity ideas, plus a blank page so you can write in your own ideas.

Active Indoor Activities for Kids