When you become a high school student, you get busy with studying, club activities, romance, and more.
Even so, there are times when you end up with a little free time while hanging out with friends during breaks or on days off.
In this article, we’ll introduce some easy and fun activities you can enjoy in those moments!
This time, we’re focusing on indoor recreation and games, ranging from things you can do right away without any equipment to card games and board games.
There are options for different group sizes and time lengths, so try finding the ones that suit you best.
- Recreation Ideas That Truly Excite High School Students! A Fun Collection of Activities
- Recreation Popularity Rankings for High School Students
- [For High School Students] Recreational Activities That Can Energize the Entire Grade or Class
- [Simple Games] Recommended Indoor Recreational Activities for Adults
- [For University Students] A Roundup of Fun Games and Recreational Activities
- Games you can play with just conversation. Classic and popular activities you can enjoy without any props!
- Get the Fun Going! Easy Classroom Games You Can Play at School: Recreational Activities for the Whole Class
- Indoor games and recreational activities recommended for junior high school students
- Recommended for upper elementary grades! Exciting indoor recreation and games
- A collection of simple indoor recreational games
- Fun and exciting penalty games recommended for high school students
- No worries even in the rain! Fun recreational activities you can do in the gym
- [For Adults] Fun recreational games. Perfect for short breaks too!
Recommended Recreations and Indoor Games for High School Students (1–10)
If you match someone else, you lose! A one-of-a-kind showdown
Games where everyone tries to give the same answer to a prompt—like “What’s your favorite rice ball filling?”—are pretty familiar, right? “Clash of the One-and-Only: If You Match, You Lose!” is a game where everyone tries to give a different answer to the prompt! It’s a game that somehow didn’t exist until now.
Your originality will be put to the test.
Prepare yourself!
Rhythm 4 Game
A lot of people are probably looking for games they can play during short breaks, on school trips, or in spare moments at training camps.
For you, I recommend the “Rhythm 4 Game.” It became hugely popular thanks to the TV show ‘Let’s Go to School!’ Apparently, there are various local rules depending on the school or region, so it’s also fun to look them up and try them out.
Prince of Orators
First, you play rock-paper-scissors to decide the order of debate.
Then comes the game ‘Debate King,’ where you use your full brainpower, imagination, and structuring skills to refute the given proposition.
The prompts are all everyday, obvious claims.
The challenge is how stylishly you can dismantle these “obvious truths.” So, can you brilliantly tear down the obvious?
Earphone Loud Telephone Game
When you think of the telephone game, it’s usually a game where you whisper the prompt quietly into the next person’s ear.
In this version, though, everyone wears earphones blasting loud music.
Since you’ve got booming headphones on, you have to guess from the faint voice you can barely hear and the shape of the speaker’s mouth, then pass the message along.
Because you can hardly hear anything, the phrase ends up turning into total nonsense by the end—and it’s absolutely hilarious.
NG word game
This “NG Word Game” is a recreational game that has been around for a long time.
It’s occasionally played on TV variety shows as well.
Each person is assigned an NG (forbidden) word, and if they say it, they lose.
If you add a penalty for the loser, it will get even more exciting.
Draw-it-from-memory challenge
Everyone, do you have any drawing skills? It’s great if you’re not amazing but can draw reasonably well, but if there’s someone with that “so-bad-it’s-good” artist vibe, how about playing a game called ‘drawing from fuzzy memory’? All you need is paper and a pen, so it’s fun even remotely and perfect for filling spare time.
You can use objects or people, but characters from anime that everyone knows—and whose correct appearance is easy to find by a quick search—tend to get everyone excited.
Word Wolf
Word Wolf is a simple yet deep game you can play verbally.
The overall flow is: each player is given a keyword as the topic, but one player—the Wolf—receives a slightly different keyword.
For example, everyone might get “flip phone,” while one person gets “landline.” Once each player has their keyword, you all start talking about the topic.
At this point, no one knows what keywords the others got, but by listening to the conversation, you try to identify the Wolf—the one person with the different topic—and guess who it is at the end.
The fun lies in the bluffing and strategy: you can lay traps to figure out who the Wolf is, or, if you realize you’re the Wolf, you can try to blend in with everyone else.
You can assign keywords using a smartphone app, and you can even play over video chat if someone acts as the game master.
ito
ito is a card game with two ways to play: Kumonoito and Akaiito.
You mainly play using cards numbered from 1 to 100.
In Kumonoito, numerical cards are dealt to players, and you express roughly how big your number is according to a given theme.
For example, if the theme is “size of animals,” holding the card ‘2’ you might say, “I’ve got an ant,” and with the card ‘80’ you might say, “I’ve got a whale.” Using those clues, players cooperate to arrange everyone’s cards in ascending numerical order; if you manage that, you win.
In Akaiito, instead of lining up cards from smallest to largest, the rule is to find someone whose number, when added to yours, comes close to 100.
Shiritori Gesture Game
It’s a simple and easy game where you play shiritori using gestures.
Starting from the first player, everyone takes turns making gestures, and if someone gets stuck or makes a mistake, they get a penalty.
You don’t need any materials, so it’s easy to play anywhere—that’s another nice point.
It’s more fun with a large group, making it perfect for playing with your whole class.
Watching what kind of gestures each person comes up with is another fun part of the game.
The Fake Artist Goes to New York
How about “A Fake Artist Goes to New York” as a recommended indoor game for high school students? In this social game, you draw according to a given theme while trying to identify the “fake artist” who doesn’t know the theme.
It’s sure to get your friends hyped! You can start quickly in a short time, making it perfect for small breaks.
The fun lies in reading others’ intentions, and it offers a nice mix of relaxation and tension.
It’s great not only for killing time but also for deepening communication, so definitely give it a try!