23 Best Indoor Activities for Kids – Fun and Engaging

Are you searching for fun ways to entertain and educate your child while indoors? Have a look through these fun indoor activities for kids that are very engaging and educational. These activities are suitable for kids between 2 and 5 years. A few of them are also suitable for kids under 2.

1.  Colour Sorting Indoor Activity

This is quite an easy indoor activity to set up and it can keep your child busy for a good amount of time. This indoor activity will help build your child’s visual perception and also their cognitive skills as they learn to sort and group similar colours.

You will need to model what you want them to do so they can copy you. You will need some  Coloured softballs, building blocks or even pegs and  Coloured A4 paper or Coloured bowls/basket.

2. Playing Dress Up Indoor Activity

This is a fun indoor activity guaranteed to keep your child busy, This activity is a guaranteed hit with kids as they can pretend to be anyone they imagine, it boosts their confidence and helps improve their vocabulary.

Haul out some old clothes they no longer wear, you could even use mummy’s or daddy’s old clothes or shoes, kids love to be like their parents, get them to try on the clothes.

Better still if you have got costumes, they can wear it and pretend to be their favourite character, they could be a princess or a pirate or any character they are currently crazy about. Don’t forget to take pictures😊😊

3. Puzzles Indoor Activity

Solving puzzles is a fun indoor activity that can help you engage with your child. Puzzles are a fun way for kids to develop hand-eye coordination, cognitive skills and their problem-solving ability. It’s an open-ended toy that can be used in different ways 

There are lots of puzzle themes and topics, get a theme your child is interested in if you don’t have one already, it could be animals, alphabets and numbers, vehicles or shapes.

Solving puzzles are a great way to build great communication skills as you get to talk about what object you can see or what sound it makes. So get them solving those puzzles to help develop their minds.

4. Play Dough Cut Out Indoor Activities

Playing with playdough is a great sensory indoor activity, it’s also a great way to help your child develop fine motor skills. Playdough helps to strengthen hand muscles and develop control over little fingers.

Your kid will get to roll, cut and flatten the playdough and make all sorts of shapes, you could use a playdough cutter, or a cookie-cutter if you have no playdough cutter.

You can easily make your own playdough with just a few ingredients and you can click here for my very easy homemade playdough recipe.

5. Finger Painting Indoor Activities

This is a simple messy sensory activity that you can enjoy with your kids, finger painting is a great way to teach your child how to recognise colours and also how to mix colours, there are so many non-toxic finger paints you could purchase online.

 If you are still concerned about the safety of store-bought finger paint because your child puts almost everything in their mouth, you can easily make yours by just adding one or two drops of food colouring into plain yoghurt (viola😀).

Finger painting indoor activities can be really messy, you could limit the mess to a specific area by spreading a cheap shower curtain on the floor and hose off after playing.

6. Teddy Bear’s Tea Party 

Setting up a teddy bears tea party is a brilliant way to practice role-play and improve your toddler’s communication.

 It is also a great way to get the whole family involved in an activity that will help broaden your toddler’s social skills.

Simply set one up by using your toddlers’ favourite teddys around the table and laying out mini-sized cups and saucers on the table.

 Inviting siblings and other family members will offer more opportunity for your toddler to hear new words.

7. Bubbles Activity

Children are fascinated by bubbles and blowing bubbles is a fun activity that can teach your toddler how to take turns, you can give them a prompt to know it’s their turn by using phrases like ‘ready, steady, go’.

8. Sock Puppet

Grab some old socks and play sock puppet with your toddler, it is a fun way to help them develop their conversational skills. You can try adopting their favourite tv character and voice to make it more fun.

Encourage your toddler to lead the conversation as it will help them build their confidence in using new words, you could ask them to tell you their favourite story or imitate their favourite character.

9. Hide and Seek Indoor Activities

Hide and seek is a fun indoor activity to play with kids, especially when you have got more than one child, as they can take turns hiding and seeking, you can set boundaries to make sure they don’t put themselves in danger while trying to hide.

You can also play hide and seek by hiding objects and asking your child to find it😀, this way you can have a cuppa while they go hunting for something they may never find 😜 plus they get to improve their problem-solving skills.

10. Matching Letters Indoor Activities

If you want to teach your child the alphabets, you could do this simple indoor activity. You’ll need magnetic letters and an A4 sheet.

All you need to do is to give your child a magnetic letter at a time so they can match it with the letters on the A4 sheet. You can create the same activity with numbers and shapes.

11. Toilet Roll Craft Indoor Activity

Start saving those empty toilet or kitchen paper rolls as there a ton of craft ideas that you can do with them that will keep you and your kids occupied.

There are several fascinating ideas for younger kids and fun ideas for grownups, they can be used to make decorations for holidays such as Halloween or Christmas.

There are some inspiring craft ideas here that you can do to create some fun craft. This is such a wonderful indoor kids’ activity as you do not have to purchase extra supplies, chances are you already have everything you need.

12. Lego Blocks Building Indoor Activity

We all tend to have blocks around the house when we have toddlers and they are the most painful things to step on, lol

There are so many ways to play with blocks, it does not matter what type of blocks you have you can keep your little one busy by using Lego blocks to construct some cool stuff.

 You can get your little one to stack them as high as they can, build a castle with the blocks, a car or whatever they can imagine.

 Coloured Lego blocks provide a great opportunity for developing fine motor skills, they can also be adapted for learning numbers and sorting colours.

13. Masking Tape Racetrack Activities

If your little one loves to play with cars you can get them creative by helping them build a track for their toy cars. This is such a great indoor kids’ activity as time flies so fast while building the track.

Save this activity for times when you are stuck indoors on a rainy day and have nowhere to go or when you just feel like spending some good quality time indoors with your kids.

You will need just two items, masking tape and racing cars, and an optional marker if you would like to draw some markings on the tape to make it look more realistic. If you have got older kids, get them involved as they will enjoy helping build the track.

14. Reading Activity

What better way to spend time with your little one than to read them a book, it’s such a simple activity yet very important as reading contributes to the development of their growing brain and it gives them a good start toward a lifelong love for reading.

 This indoor activity is also a fantastic way to help with their language development. As they watch you read they begin to take note of your mouth pattern and try to copy you, so try to look at them in the face when you read to them and make sure they can see how your lips move while you are reading to them.

 Try not to get bored if they keep requesting you read their favourite book as they learn faster through repetition.

15. Pasta Necklace Indoor Activities

You can have loads of fun making cute colourful pasta necklace, time goes by really quick when you do this very simple indoor activity.

It is such an excellent activity because it provides room for bonding and communication, and it is an excellent way to improve fine motor skills by practicing threading.  Also, the necklace can be treasured and stored for keepsake.

 I have added a link that will provide you with information on everything you need to make a pasta necklace, have fun 😊.

16. Building Blocks Maze Activity

Have fun creating an intriguing maze using building blocks, this is a great indoor activity for kids that helps develop problem-solving skills and will also help your kid develop their thinking ability.

I bet your kid has building blocks and a few racing cars, that is literally all you need, you can actually swap the racing car for softballs if you have no racing cars.

How to Create the Maze

All you have to do is to use the blocks to build a maze, you can do this on a table or on the floor whatever works best for you, model moving the racing car from the start point to the endpoint. There can only be one start point and one exit point, let your child have a go.

You can set the maze up to be easy or difficult it all depends on your child’s age and/or their intellectual capability, it’s such a great activity for a wide age range of children so get creative and get your child thinking.😊

17. Colouring Book and Crayon Indoor Activity

As the title implies, get your little one a colouring book and some crayons and let them explore colouring the book as they deem fit.

You could explore the internet and download an image that suits you and your child best. Print them off and laminate them so they can last for a long time.

You can easily wipe off the crayon from laminated colouring sheet when they are done painting and the colouring book/ sheet will be as good as new.

18. Magnets on Fridge Indoor Activity for Kids

You can get Magnetic alphabets or numbers and encourage your child to count from 1 to 10 using the magnets, this is also a great way to get them to learn their ABC’s. They might also learn to spell simple words or their name using the magnetic alphabets.

19. Cardboard Box House Indoor Activities

If you shop online, please don’t throw away the packaging boxes as they can be used for so many indoor kids’ activity crafts.

 If you have got a big box, you and your toddler can splash some vibrant colours on it and turn it into a mini house.

 You could get more creative and cut some cardboard into round shapes to make tyres and voila you have got yourself a car …. vroom vroom…lol.

20. Flash Card Indoor Kids’ Activity

If you have got a child with a speech delay or a visual learner, this is a great indoor activity that you can do to encourage your child to learn new words. Using flashcards can also help to improve vocabulary therefore making them learn new words.

You can get some really good quality flashcards online, or you can make yours by taking pictures of items regularly used in your home, print, laminate and cut them to size.

Point and show your child each flashcard and say the word, start with a few cards at a time so they don’t get overwhelmed,  encourage them to repeat what you say, try to do this indoor activity over and over again as repetition is key.

21. Shape Sorting Indoor Activities

We are all surrounded by objects that have different shapes, you can keep your child busy doing this simple indoor activity, by teaching your child how to recognise different types of shapes.

 You can buy a shape sorter or you could create your own by using masking tape to make a shape on the floor or a table, gather random objects or toys from around the house and let your little one guess where each object fits into.

22. Pairing Socks Indoor Activity

Pairing socks together is an activity that can greatly increase your child’s communication skills and you will also have a little helper who will make sorting laundry more fun.

Chat to your little one about all the colours and lengths of the socks; you could say ‘daddy’s sock is long; is your socks short or long’ and so on.

23. Singing songs with Actions Indoor Activities

Singing songs with actions such as Head, shoulder knees, and toes or the wheels on the bus, are great indoor activities for kids that will help improve your child’s coordination skills and expands their vocabulary.

 When children sing action songs, it helps them remember new words and their meanings. Encourage your child to take the lead and wait for them to sing and gesture if they can remember.