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31 FREE Activities For Kids At Home
Looking for engaging, exciting, and FREE ideas to do with your children at home? Check out this list of thirty-one fun activities you can try today!
When you’re stuck inside, it’s time to hit the living room for some fun indoor play that won’t cost you a thing. It’s time to break out the board games, arts and crafts ! It can be hard coming up with fresh ideas of free activities for kids when you feel like you have done it all. When they need a break from electronics, these 31 fun things your children love will keep them busy without the cost.
These kids activities are great for the whole family or something you can set out for the kids to play together that will give you a much needed break to fix dinner or do chores.
1. Puzzles
You can never go wrong with a few good puzzles. Be sure to choose puzzles with the right amount of pieces to make it a bit of a challenge without making it too hard for your children. A minimum of 24 pieces and up to 100 pieces is best for elementary-aged children. You can find these at your local dollar store or even find some for free on facebook market place.
To add a little boost, if you have more that one child. You can have 2 small puzzles and make it competitive. See who can finish the puzzle first.
2. Online Culinary Games
Online Culinary School Games has a huge assortment of fun online games for kids of all ages. Playing these games strengthens their memory skills and can easily pass the time. Other games like slicing games, paint by numbers, muduc games and classic arcade games will keep the kids busy for hours. There are lots of different versions of games to play.
3. Color by Number
Coloring by number is always fun. Let your children use crayons, markers, or colored pencils to color beautiful images while following the directions! If you can’t find an actual color by number, you can make your own color key at the bottom of any color sheet.
4. Paint by Number
Older kids love the added challenge of strategic painting. Color by number is fun but paint by number can be real artwork. If you believe your children can do this with no problem, set them up with the paint and several coloring pages.
5. Free Learning Printables
Look online for some fun, free learning printables. If you print them from your computer, you can use them to help educate your children while keeping them entertained and engaged in the lesson.
6. Rock Painting
Grab some rocks and let the kids cover them with different colors. They can use their creative side to add images and special designs to the rocks to make them look even better.
7. Edible Play Dough + FREE Printable
Kick up the traditional and make Edible Outer Space Play Dough which comes with a free printable. This Edible Outer Space Play Dough is a super, duper easy 2 ingredient play dough for little kids that aren’t ready for “real” play dough.
8. Toilet Paper Crafts
One thing I’m sure everyone has an abundance of is empty toilet paper rolls. There are so many crafts you can make with this this simple little item. One cute idea is this Toilet Paper Roll Ladybug Craft. This is a fun rainy day activity, You can head over here to check out that tutorial.
9. Canvas Painting
Do you have some black canvases at home? If so, let the kids paint images on them using any paint that you have at home. You can supply the kids with brushes, sponges, and other items to use with the paint.
10. Board Games
This is a classic indoor activity, so it goes without saying board games are a win. Pulling out the board games to keep the kids entertained is true gold. You may have some at home already, such as Clue, Monopoly, and even Candyland but you can look at facebook market place to find one people are giving away free or even look to trade a few games with friends.
If you want to try something new and fresh, you can always head on over here to find some of the best board games by ages.
11. Jump Rope
Encourage your children to get active by supplying them with a jump rope. See who can jump the most rope in a specific period.
12. Card Games
Have some fun with card games. You might already have a few of these games at home, such as Go Fish!
13. Sensory Jar
Create a sensory jar using sand, plastic toys, straw, beads, dinosaurs, you name it…. all items are welcomed. This adorable Unicorn Sensory Jar is super easy to put together, and is perfect for your little ones! Whether they just need to take a moment to calm down, relax before bedtime, or just use it as a seek and find activity- they will love playing with their Unicorn Sensory Jar!
14. Crossword Puzzles
Have fun testing skills with crossword puzzles. You can print lots of kid-friendly crossword puzzles at home.
15. 55+ FREE Virtual Escape Room Online For Kids
Virtual Escape rooms are the new mystery solving trend for kids. There are so many out there. My favorite are the seasonal and holiday escape rooms for kids. I wasn’t sure how my kids would first react to these virtual escape games. But, once they got the hang of them, my kids who are 14 and 10 couldn’t get enough. What was even sweeter, is that it brought them closer together.
I noticed that they would do a game together and use teamwork to help solve puzzles for escape rooms. We have even saved a few of the harder ones to use as a family game night.
16. Homemade Obstacle Course
Make an obstacle course at home using different items, such as plastic rings, pool noodles, and more. The children will love it.
They can go up, under and around things like tables and chair. Make it even more exciting by having a times course or side by side competition.
17. Hide and Seek
This is one of our most favorite indoor games. You can make it silly and more challenging by making them pretend play. Maybe they need to only seek by crawling or acting like an animal. The hider may need to find a place to hide behind a certain color or in a place never hide before. Take turns to determine who will hide and who will seek.
18. Learn Shadow Puppets
This is a real skill but with a blanket, light and a blank wall, you can be on your way to creating your own puppet characters. Set a story idea and you and your child can improve make a story up on a whim. You will likely find yourself laughing uncontrollably. If you need some help with creating characters. You can look on YouTube for step by step hand and finger placements.
19. Bug Hunt
Take the children out for a nature walk. You don’t need to go far, you can explore your neighborhood or even your own backyard. Show them how they can look under rocks and wood, even in the cracks of the trees for new and unusual insects. If you choose to collect them in a plastic container, you can then go to the internet and learn about them.
20. Trip to the Playground
Head over to the playground for some fun. Let the kids swing, go down the slide, climb, and let loose! It’s a great way for them to wear themselves out.
21. Make Paper Dolls
Get crafty and make paper dolls! You can draw them beforehand to trace the shape of the doll before you cut it out.
22. Plant Flowers
Have the kids lend a helping hand in the garden by planting different flowers. They can dig in the soil, plant seeds, and keep an eye on it as it grows.
Throughout the year, you can also teach them how to collect seeds from flowers head that have gone to seed. Collect them and let them 100%dry out before you place them in a baggy or mason jar.
23. Look for Rocks
Go on the search to find different rocks. You can collect rocks with the kids and bring them home to paint them! To make it more challenging you can send the kids on a hunt for certain rocks, like find a red rock, two tiny white rocks and a flat rock. This will keep them busy for awhile.
24. Brown paper bag puppets
These old classic have unlimited possibilities. You can literally hand the kids over a bag, a box of bedazzle items, construction paper, scissors and a glue stick and they will have the time of their life letting a the creative juices flow. The great thing, there is no right or wrong way to use you imagination with this craft.
25. Memory Box
Have the kids make a memory box that they can look back on at a later time. It should include a list of their current favorite things, such as favorite food, favorite color, and favorite song.
26. Balloon Volleyball
Play a fun game of balloon volleyball is one of our favorite indoor activities. The kids can hit the ball back and forth without worrying about breaking a window in the process. It’s a fun game that can quickly get competitive!
27. Listen to an Audio Book
Put on a relaxing audiobook for the kids to listen to. Make sure you’re choosing a good book that will keep them engaged.
28. Dance to Music
Get ready to dance to music. Put on Kidz Bop or any of your favorite songs and encourage everyone to have a good time. You can teach your kids some dance moves and vice versa.
29. Hula Hooping
Teach your children how to use a hula hoop and then have a hula hooping competition. It’s a fun exercise! Don’t be surprised if you lose track of the time while having fun with the hula hoop.
30. Bake Something
Get the kids to help you bake something! This can be as simple as helping prep the vegetable for dinner or you could have them help you with the measurements while baking. I swear, baking a sweet, always seems to give my kids the greatest since of accomplishment. I think they like the idea of creating something from scratch. If you don’t necessarily want your kids under foot while baking, you could always get them involved in the decorating. Cookies and cupcakes are a great double whammy, they can have fun creating an edible masterpiece and they have dessert at the same time.
31. Indoor Scavenger Hunt
This easy to understand indoor scavenger hunt printable is wonderful to have on had if you have your hands full and you need an uninterrupted minute.
Designed to be an independent activity, because this free printable uses picture identification to help early readers collect the scavenger items with little to no help from adults . Just read though the list with your little one and they should be able to take it from there.
These 30 free activities for elementary kids will keep your children busy when they’re not in school. So, if you want to have some fun without electronics, be sure to consider some of these fun activities.
