[Elementary School] Quick and Easy! Indoor Recreational Activities Perfect for Lower Grades
We’ve gathered a bunch of fun recreational activities that will make lower elementary school kids want to get moving! From active indoor games that offer plenty of exercise to brain-teasing games you can enjoy while thinking, these ideas are perfect for rainy days and cold seasons.
Kids can naturally deepen their communication skills by competing with friends or working together as a team.
Preparation is simple, and you can start right away—so make recess at school or time at home even more rewarding!
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Indoor exercises and physical activity games (11–20)
dodgeball
Here’s an introduction to the king of elementary school recess: dodgeball.
Split into teams, throw the ball at the opposing team’s players in the infield and hit them; those who get hit move to the outfield.
Repeat this, and the team loses when all of its infield players are out.
You can of course play indoors, and it’s a game that kids from lower to upper grades can all enjoy.
Just be careful not to get so absorbed that you lose track of time.
Blindfold Balance Game
It’s an incredibly straightforward game: stand on one leg while blindfolded.
It sounds easy at first, but just hiding your vision and balancing on one leg makes you wobble a lot.
People with high athletic ability and strong core stability might manage, but for those who don’t exercise regularly, even 30 seconds can be tough.
It’s a highly recommended activity because you can really feel your sense of balance in your body.
Tail-tag game
Here’s another classic: “Tail Tag.” Split into teams and try to grab the tails attached to the waistbands of your opponents’ pants.
The rules are simple, but you’ll need nimble footwork to avoid letting others get behind you—and agility to slip around behind your opponents.
If you focus too much on one spot, the other team might appear from an unexpected direction, so having a wide field of vision is important too.
Basketball at Home
Do you think you can only play basketball in a schoolyard or gym? Actually, there are goal rings you can mount on an indoor wall using the hardware attached on the back! Since it’s indoors, playing full games might be difficult, but it’s more than enough for tossing a ball and taking some shots, right? Being able to play basketball at home would be fun—especially on rainy days when it’s hard to go out.
If you use a light, soft ball, it should be safe to enjoy, too.
Limbo dance
Limbo is something you often see on TV variety shows.
It’s the game where you lean your body back and try to pass under a horizontal bar! Start at a height that’s easy to get under, then gradually lower it to build excitement.
The rules are simple, and since smaller children have an advantage, both adults and kids can enjoy it together—that’s the key! Use a clothes rack to hold the bar, make one out of cardboard, or get creative and build an adjustable-height bar.
5 super fun activities
We’ll be introducing five activities: “Irregular Play,” “Swirly Tail Chase,” “Receive & Catch,” “Ball Rolling Play,” and “Cross Rubber Jump Tail Chase.” They mainly use a ball—putting it into a basket, catching it, and combining movements like hopscotch and forward rolls to get the body moving.
In “Swirly Tail Chase,” attach a jump rope instead of a string and run away from the tagger, changing directions between clockwise and counterclockwise.
For “Cross Rubber Jump Tail Chase,” stretch elastic bands across the room and escape from the tagger while jumping over the bands.
Indoor exercises and physical activity games (21–30)
Rhythm play with words
Word Rhythm Play is a game you can enjoy while moving your body, building vocabulary and a sense of rhythm, and training skills like quick thinking and problem-solving.
Listen to the beat and match your words to it.
Any words are fine, but the key is to stay on rhythm.
Start with an easy beat and gradually increase the difficulty.
Once you get used to it, adding handclaps while playing can make it even more exciting.
