Indoor Games for Small Groups: Exciting Recreational Activities
We’ll introduce games and recreational activities you can enjoy with small groups.
During seasons of extreme heat or cold, or on rainy days, kids can’t play freely outdoors and often end up with energy to spare.
That’s when indoor activities that engage both the body and mind are perfect.
In this article, we’ll share lots of fun games that help children develop balance, a sense of rhythm, thinking skills, and the ability to cooperate.
Each one offers exciting, heart-pounding thrills and is great for relieving stress!
Find new play ideas and make your indoor playtime even more enjoyable.
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[Small-Group Indoor Play] Exciting Recreational Activities (101–110)
Newspaper Rock-Paper-Scissors
A slightly thrilling game using newspapers, “Newspaper Janken.” Each player stands on their own spread-out sheet of newspaper and plays rock-paper-scissors.
The winner stays as they are, while the loser folds their newspaper in half.
You repeat this—losers fold in half—until only one person can still stand, and that person wins.
Your heart races as the newspaper gets smaller and smaller… In the end, it’s a battle to see how long you can balance on your tiptoes! It also helps develop balance, so it’s a great exercise for days when you can’t go outside.
Newspaper Tower
Newspaper Tower is a competition to see who—individuals or teams—can build the tallest tower using newspapers stood upright.
There are no fixed building methods; you test and iterate on whatever approach you think will let you build higher.
It’s simple, yet surprisingly brain-teasing.
Common rules include using up to six sheets of newspaper and banning adhesives like glue or tape, but you can tweak those however you like.
Keep an eye on what others are doing and push your creativity to figure out how to build higher—aim for a newspaper tower taller than anyone else’s!
Catch with a newspaper stick
In this game, you first throw a towel and catch it with a stick made from newspaper.
Since a handmade newspaper stick tends to feel more personal, how about making the first half of the activity a craft session? Also, towels can be hard to throw as they are, so I recommend tying one end with a rubber band to act as a weight.
Stick-removal game
A stick-pulling game where a bundle of sticks is set upright, and you carefully remove them one by one without toppling the bundle.
It’s sold as a set under the name “Stickee” (Sticky).
Players take turns removing one stick at a time in the color shown on the die.
As more sticks are removed, the balance gets increasingly unstable, but it’s still safe as long as the ring holding the bundle doesn’t touch the ground.
The player who causes the shape to collapse so that the ring touches the ground is out! The sticks come in three colors, each worth different points, and the winner is determined by the total points of the sticks they’ve collected.
Fun for everyone from young children to grandparents!
Underwater Coin Drop Game
As a recreational activity perfect for temple festivals and school fairs, “Underwater Coin Drop” is highly recommended.
For this game, you fill a tank with water and try to drop 1-yen coins into a cup placed inside it.
Because the coins sway due to water resistance, it’s actually quite difficult to land them where you aim.
It’s also great because kids who aren’t good at sports or who differ in physical build can enjoy playing easily.