Kid's Inside Games & Activities

Arts and Crafts

• Arts and crafts activities provide your children with a creative outlet and are a way keep them amused when they are stuck indoors. Give your kids paper, paint, crayons, markers, stickers and any other art medium you have on hand and let them show off their artistic side. You can also give them more structured arts and crafts activities, such as making holiday decorations. You can then showcase their work throughout the home.

Board Games

• Board games are not only entertaining, they can also be educational and can help your child learn math or reading concepts. Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land and Hi-Ho Cherry-O are just a few classic board games for kids. Other board games traditionally made for adults have been modified into children's games, such as Monopoly Junior, Clue Junior and Boggle Junior.

Baking

• Children enjoy baking, as they take pride in their work and get to eat their yummy creations. With the help of an adult, your kids can turn your kitchen into a bakery for a day. Start with basic brownies, cookies, cakes or cupcakes. Then, get creative with your baking endeavours. Parents Magazine suggests making sugar-cookie pizzas. To do so, flatten a roll of pre-made sugar cookie dough with a rolling pin. Once it's flattened, make the dough look like "pizza" by spreading strawberry or raspberry jam for sauce, shredded coconut to represent the cheese, red M&M's for pepperoni and round black licorice pieces for olives.

Active Games

• Children can burn off their energy, even when they are stuck inside the house, with games that allow them to be active. An open space--free of clutter or objects that someone can be hurt on--is the ideal space to play such games. Consider crab walking, hide-and-seek and bean bag toss. You could also try the balloon sandwich game, which is best played with groups of four or more. To play, you need a collection of blown-up balloons and a designated "finish line." Put the kids in teams of two and have them stand back to back. Place a balloon between their backs and have them move to the finish line without dropping or popping the balloon. If the balloon does drop or pop, the team needs to get a replacement and start over again. The first team to complete the mission wins.