Active Activity Time: Indoors with Your Kids
Looking for an active activity to do inside with your kids? Here is a list of my top 5 active activities my toddler likes to play. Older kids may enjoy these games as well!
My Toddler’s Favourite: The Command Game
This active activity is really simple. You can do it while reading a book, or working on your family budget! At first Little Fox referred to this activity by asking me to “play questions.” Now that her pronunciation abilities are expanding we call it the Command Game. We started this game in an effort to work on her listening skills and obedience. By giving her short directions that she always wants to follow, she practices listening and obeying at the same time. The rules are simple. I give a direction, and then she follows it. And then she comes back for another one.
Here are some example commands.
Jump Up And Down – touch something green – Build An Ice Church (#Frozen) – Run in a circle around your plush animal – Sing A Song – put the loose toy away – Dance Like (An Animal) – run and touch (something at the other end of the room) and come back – ETCETERA!
If your child is older, then you can do this game as “Simon Says.”
Active Activity Two: Floor Is Lava
There are a couple ways to do this one. I like putting a bunch of flat pillows across the floor and Little Fox has to travel from one end of the room to another without touching the ground. This can also be between a couch and a chair, or a rug and the stairs. Basically you need two safe landmarks and something to be stepping stones in between. Other people use small blankets, books, or pieces of cardboard for their stepping stones.
The bouncing/jumping/skipping back and forth will expend lots of energy!
Indoor Active Bowling
Using plastic water bottles, pop bottles, pop cans, or paper towel rolls, set up a bowling alley in your home! Let your child roll a ball to knock over as many “bowling pins” as they can. I have yet to find a day Little Fox is not interested in playing with balls. And make your child go get their ball and put the pins back up. That way they exert maximum energy during the activity. If you have painters tape or gaffers tape, you could mark the floor with the spots the pins are supposed to go.
Indoor sports make for an awesome active activity. Other easy ones you could try include indoor paper basketball (use a laundry basket for a toddler and a recycling bin for an older child. You could tape a ring over the basket to make it more difficult if needed.
Active Activity Four: Indoor Obstacle Course
Little Fox is obsessed with jumping over things at the moment. A line on the floor from an imprint of recently moved furniture is an instant jumpathon. She also likes to jump over her toys. Taking a hallway or large open space in your home, you can make an obstacle course with things to jump over and crawl under. Obviously, the older the child, the more complex this can be. For my toddler we just jump over lines/small things, and crawl under chairs or tables. With an older child I would add weaving in and out of pylons (book markers? Bottles from the bowling activity). And I would add skill stations, where they have to stop and follow directions that they read or from a picture (do 5 jumping jacks
Hide and Seek Plush Animals: Active Activity 5
This is a fun one too. Instead of having a toddler hide and then a panic about where the child is, the child does all the looking! I have Little Fox count to ten, while I hide 2-3 of her favourite plush animals. Since she is young, they are mostly in easy spots. And then I give some hints for any harder to find animals. We mostly play this within the space of her room or the living room.
With an older child you can adapt the game to extend over a larger zone in the home. And add more plush animals. You might need to make a list of how many are hidden. You could turn it into an educational game by adding written clues or riddles.
The Byzantine Life
If you enjoyed this week’s article, you might also be interested in reading next week’s article on Byzantine Montessori Preschool in a Classical Home (stay tuned!), or our already published article on Home Educating a 2 Year Old.
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