4 Indoor Activities to Keep Your Kids Active

Winter brings many new outdoor activities, like building snowmen, making forts, and exploring a winter wonderland. Minnesota winters, however, can become is cold that outdoor activities become unwelcome - or even dangerous - for kids.

When the weather outside is dreary and frigid and your kids feel antsy, you may wonder how to get them moving while indoors.

Fortunately, with some common household items, and a little creativity, the fun doesn’t have to stop.

1. Grab the Painter’s Tape

Make lines on the floor for some impromptu hopscotch or long jump. Or, tape different shapes, numbers and letters on the floor and play the shape game. Ask your child to run, hop, skip, jump and crawl to the different spots and learn their numbers and letters along the way!

For younger children, you can tape the door frame in the shape of a sticky spider web, then give your child some newspaper to reach and stick or throw onto the web. It’s great for building motor skills.

2. No Construction set? No Problem!

Take advantage of all those leftover holiday or birthday paper cups and plates and bowls, egg cartons, cardboard tubes and ice cream buckets. They make a great impromptu construction set. The more variety of dishes, the better. Your kids will be building tall towers, fun buildings, castles and more in no time!

As another option for those paper dishes, draw some Xs and Os on the plates instead, tape a blank tic tac toe board on the floor and play a giant game of tic tac toe.

3. Have a Dance Party

Dim the lights, dress up in silly outfits and throw on some fun classics, like disco. Find karaoke songs on YouTube and sing along with your children. It’s a great way to make light of a cold day!

4. Don’t Knock the Classics

So much fun can be had with a simple balloon! Challenge your kids to waddle around the room with a balloon between their knees, without dropping it. Multiple kids can play a three-legged race adaptation with the balloon between their hips and build teamwork.

Another balloon game option with multiple children is hot potato, the game where you don’t let the balloon touch the ground. It seems simple, but it can get competitive fast!


Need to feel inspired? School-A-Thon is all about making things fun. Check out our blog for more tips and tricks, from getting your kids off the couch to family cooking how-tos!