Playing is not only fun, it is also an essential part of a child’s development. Following on from my previous post about Fun Drawing Games, I have put together some more ideas for indoor children’s games. They are all free and involve items you already have around the house.
The Pictionary Game
Give children a word or sentence and ask them to draw it until other people can guess what it is. If younger children like drawing, but are struggling with the reading side of the game, ask them to decide what to draw themselves and let everyone else guess what it is. Of course adults can draw too, that is the beauty of the game.
Charades
It’s always a bit of fun to get up and stretch your legs.
Write down the names of animals, characters or even emotions (like happy, cross, sad) on a piece of paper. Cut them out, fold them up and put them into a bucket or bowl.
Ask each person to pick a piece of paper and act it out for the others to guess.
Blind Fold Drawing
Blind fold the person who is going to draw and ask them to follow instructions from another person about how to draw the object. This encourages listening and helps coordination. Keep the drawing simple. Everything is difficult when you can’t see what you are doing. Direct them to the paper and then direct them where and what to draw. Circles, square and triangle shapes are good starting points. If you want to make it more competitive you can award points for it being a neat drawing or if they can identify what they have drawn, before they take their blindfold off.
Alternate Drawing
Take turns adding to a collaborative drawing. One person starts by drawing a line or two. Then the next person adds to it. It is interesting how a picture can turn out, especially since everyone will see something different in it. What had originally started off as a dog might easily turn into a post box or even a shield. Try it, you’ll be surprised how creative you can be. Just watch out for squabbles if the picture doesn’t go the way you want!
Two versions of the Memory Game
The Item Game: Put some items on a tray and give people a minute to stare at it before taking it away or putting a cloth over it. See how many items they can remember.
The Word Game: You can also do this with words too. Write a number of words down and see how many get remembered when they are covered up.
The Touch Box
Place different items on a tray or even better, in a shoe box and ask children to guess what they are by touch alone. If you are using a shoe box, cut a hole in it just big enough for the child’s hand and place different items, of different size and texture inside. If you are using a tray, obviously the child will need to wear a blind fold first, so they can’t see the object in front of them.
Word Snap
Write down a long list of words, that the child can read and recognise, on a piece of thick paper or cardboard. Make sure you write each word three or four times.
Cut the words out and shuffle them. Divide them up between the players. Take it in turns to each lay a word down (face up). If the next word matches the one previously laid down shout the word ‘snap’ out loud. The first person to shout snap correctly, wins the pile. The person with the most cards/words at the end is the winner.
Act It Out
Children love to dress up and pretend to be someone else. Get some props together and a mixture of clothes and materials. Encourage kids to dress up and act out their favourite story. Perhaps even create a completely new story and characters.
The Listening and Awareness Game
Collect several objects together that can make a noise. Any noise. You can be as creative with this as you like. It could be a comb, a salt seller, a carton of milk, a set of keys, an envelope… Place the objects in front of the child and let them look at them all. Next ask the child to close their eyes, or blindfold them, if they don’t mind. Then pick up the objects, one at a time and use them to make a sound. Ask your child to guess what each object it is.
Other Drawing Game Ideas
Have a look at my previous Fun Drawing Games post for some additional creative ideas, but there are so many indoor children’s games you can make up yourselves too. Just have fun, be creative and let me know what new indoor children’s games you come up with.
Pictures to colour in can also be found on the Character’s pages. Why not send me a photo of the pictures you do and I can put them on the website? or post them on my Twitter page @tanyajpage2.
Happy Playing!