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Hands On As We Grow®

Hands on kids activities for hands on moms. Focusing on kids activities perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.

100+ Fun Learning Activities For Kids To Do At Home

Learning Literacy & ABCs Math & 123s Kindergartners Preschoolers Colors Counting Letters Numbers Reading Shapes 7 Comments

Make learning for toddlers and preschoolers more exciting with hands-on activities. Try out these fun learning activities for kids to do at home as you get ready for school.

It’s almost time for kids to go back to school ! Learning doesn’t have to take place only at school, though.

Have fun learning about colors, shapes, letters, and words with these fun educational activities you can do at home.

These are all easy activities that you can do at home with your toddlers and preschoolers.

Which activities will you try first?

Download the Learn a Letter Week of Activities

Fun Learning Activities For Kids: Shapes

Have fun learning about squares, circles, stars, and more with these fun shape learning activities for kids!

•  Introduce toddlers to shapes with 10 fun shapes activities found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Create animals with shapes in a  zoo animals shape craft  found on A Blog From the Pond.
• Make more shape animals  as seen on The Educators’ Spin On It.
• Get active while you hunt for shapes with a  photo scavenger hunt , just like on Hands On As We Grow.
• Sort shapes with this simple card sorting activity  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Make stars out of toothpicks with this experiment from Rookie Parenting.

Add in a little science fun with 50 easy experiments for kids !

Fun Learning Activities For Kids: Words & Letters

Have fun practicing ABCs, phonics, sight words, and spelling names with these easy and fun learning activities for kids.

No boring worksheets required!

• Check out these  12 fun phonics activities  from Hands On As We Grow to practice sounding out words.
• Use plastic Easter eggs for a   letter matching activity  with an idea from Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary.
• Practice sight words with these 12 sight word activities  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• The Imagination Tree uses a basket for their  phonics sounds sorting activity .
• Practice beginning letter sounds with this beginning letter sounds sorting game  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Try  50 incredible alphabet activities for preschoolers , found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Discover 21 obvious and crazy ways to practice spelling words  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Try some more spelling word practice with these homemade  spelling cards  found on Confidence Meets Parenting.
• Practice writing names with these 35 name activities  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Find unique ways to write your child’s name with  12 name writing activities  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Practice letters using shaving cream with this shaving cream activity  from Hands On As We Grow.
• Get active while learning words with this  bean bag toss sight words game  from Hands On As We Grow.
• Practice writing words with this triple name tracing fun activity , from Hands On As We Grow.
• Hands On As We Grow makes Easter eggs into a fun sight word scavenger hunt .
• Play hide and seek in this fun  spelling game  from What Do We Do All Day.

Add in a little counting and numbers practice with 40 number activities for preschoolers.

Fun Learning Activities For Kids: Colors

Colors can be found all around us. Have fun exploring and learning about colors with these simple color learning activities for kids.

• Sort colors with this color sensory bag  found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Experiment with  color mixing eruptions with an idea from Learn Play Imagine.
• Go on a color hunt  with your toddler, just like Busy Toddler.
• A DIY color matching mat  does double duty with fine motor skills practice, with a how-to from Hands On As We Grow.
• Make an  upcycled clock color matching craft  with a guide from Hands On As We Grow.
• Sort colors with this sticky window color matching activity  from Hands On As We Grow.
• Use fall leaves and a  color chart  to make learning fun, as seen on Hands On As We Grow.
• Go on a  preschool color scavenger hunt  as seen on Hands On As We Grow.
• Match colors while creating a beautiful rainbow with this Cheerios Rainbow craft  as seen on Hands On As We Grow.
• Don’t step in the lava  as you jump from color to color, with an activity found on Hands On As We Grow.
• Match colors across the house with this connect the colors activity  as seen on Hands On As We Grow.
• Make a  color matching collage  as seen on Hands On As We Grow.

With so many choices, which one of these at-home activities will you choose to do first? Share your favorite fun learning activities for kids with us!

About brigitte brulz.

Brigitte Brulz is a homeschooling mom of two daughters, wife of her high school sweetheart, and author of Jobs of a Preschooler and Pickles, Pickles, I Like Pickles. She offers free coloring pages and activity ideas on her website at BrigitteBrulz.com .

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24 At-Home Learning Activities to Share with Parents of Young Children

*We originally published this post near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While some things have changed since then, the activities in this post are still great skill-builders for young children! 

As schools close due to COVID-19 concerns and new guidelines on social distancing take effect, many parents are home with their young children—and looking for new ways to keep them occupied while building on the skills they’ve been learning in the classroom. Keeping kids engaged and active (without overusing screens!) can be tough during an unexpected break like this, especially when new safety recommendations put a temporary hold on play dates, restaurant trips, and visits to crowded parks, zoos, and other places kids love.

If you’re a parent of young children—or if you work with families—today’s post is tailored especially for you. We’re bringing you a collection of 24 at-home learning activities parents can use to boost their child’s academic, motor, communication, and social-emotional skills while they’re home from school. Adapted from some of our best books on early childhood development and education, these fun and inexpensive activities will keep kids learning and give you easy ways to connect with them during this unexpected break in routine.

Please share these ideas with any families who might benefit, and if you have a favorite at-home activity to share, add it in the comments below!

Academic skills

Supercharge your storytimes. Your daily book reading sessions are golden opportunities to actively build early literacy skills. To boost vocabulary knowledge, watch for words you think your child may not know and briefly define and talk about them. When you reread a book, ask your child if they remember what the word means, and try to use the new words at other times of the day to reinforce knowledge. To build letter recognition skills, try pointing to letters as you say their names, singing a slowed-down ABC song while you point to each letter in the book. Turn to random pages in the book and see if children can name and point to the letters themselves. You can follow up by having your child make their own ABC book, finding or drawing pictures for each letter.

Make a museum. Your child but can make a museum at home with a little imagination and a few simple materials. If your child has collected little treasures over the years (rocks, shells, toy dinosaurs, buttons, etc.), show them how to arrange their collections in themed displays using shoe boxes, small jars, or egg cartons. Help children label their treasures—a great way to practice letter writing and recognition—and build their language skills by encouraging them to give “tours” of their personal museum to visitors. (While you’re teaching young children at home, a virtual museum tour might also be a fun way to spark conversations about art and history.)

Start a language-rich restaurant at home. If your kids love restaurants, why not start one at home, and use it to help teach language and literacy skills? Stock your play area with empty boxes, food containers, and restaurant props with writing on them, such as takeout menus, placemats, or a newspaper circular. Read the menu with them, or help them create their own menus from scratch. Help kids make a sign with their restaurant’s name. As children play, point out words on the restaurant props and encourage them to spot familiar letters and words.

Measure their masterworks. Are your kids passing the time by making a long cardboard road for their cars, or building a tall tower with blocks? Dig out your ruler and incorporate a little measurement lesson into their play. Show them how to use the ruler to measure the length of their road or the height of their tower. They might have fun predicting how many inches long or feet high their creations are.

Communication skills

Have an adventure—without leaving your living room. Sit with your kids on a rug or couch and pretend you’re leaving for a big adventure on a magic carpet, submarine, or school bus. Ask them to share their ideas on where they want to visit, and take turns concocting a story about your adventure. Describe the sights you see and ask kids questions that invite their creative participation: “Look, there’s a circus! Can you see the elephants? What are they doing?” “Do you see that school of fish? What do you think fish learn about in school?” This is a great way to strengthen communication skills while having fun with kids who feel cooped up.

Set up a home office for kids. This is an indoor activity kids love—they’ll enjoy the chance to be “just like you.” Set up a pretend office in a corner of your home where kids can make calls, write letters and “send” them, and type important emails. Be sure to provide lots of varied materials for them to work with: an old keyboard to type with, file folders and paper, a calculator, an old phone (toy or real), pens and pencils, tape, envelopes, rubber stamps, and notepads. Then pretend with them—give them a “call” and ask when the mail will be arriving, or ask to have a face-to-face meeting in their office.

Have some flashlight fun. This activity can help boost communication skills while easing your child into bedtime. Once your child is in bed, give them a flashlight and play with it together in the darkened room. Take turns shining the light on different things. Ask your child questions about the items in the room, and talk about what you see. Whisper and laugh together, and make up a silly story. Bedtime chats like these hone language skills while helping your child feel safe, secure, and calm.

Motor skills

Open your own “art school.” Start by reading your child some favorite picture books and talking about the different techniques the artists used for the illustrations. Then have the child practice fine motor skills by making books or illustrations of their own, using materials such as watercolors, paste, paper, cloth scraps, ribbon, foil, string, stamps, greeting cards, and box tops. When they’re done, your kids can hang their masterpieces in a special gallery area or “read” their illustrated books to you or each other.

Make egg carton caterpillars. If you use up lots of eggs, here’s a fun fine-motor activity to do with those leftover cardboard egg cartons. Cut the egg section of the cartons into strips, one for each child in your house. Have each child choose a caterpillar body and decorate it with paint or markers or by gluing on different colors or textures of paper. Pipe cleaners make great antennae, and children may even want to add some pipe cleaner legs to their caterpillar. Remind them to draw or glue on a face!

Outline an animal. Does your child have a favorite animal? Draw a simple silhouette of the animal on a big piece of paper and give your child some glue and a bowl of Cheerios or uncooked pasta shapes. Then have the child outline the animal by gluing the cereal or pasta pieces to the page, following the lines you drew. (Always supervise carefully when children are working with small items that could be a choking hazard.)

Social-emotional skills

Pound some dough together. Mushing, squeezing, and pounding dough is a great activity for helping kids process feelings of anger, frustration, and helplessness (and housebound grownups might find this just as therapeutic). Mix up some cookie dough (like these “Get the Mad Out” cookies on the PBS website) and mash and knead it together. Or if baking isn’t your thing, let the kids smush and pound play dough or clay. They’ll let off steam in a safe way and hone their creativity at the same time.

Encourage nurturing play. When the world feels scary, nurturing dolls and stuffed animals is a good way for children to refocus their feelings and practice caring behavior. Set up toy cribs where children can put their “babies” to bed, water tables where kids can bathe their dolls, and places where the babies can be fed with old bottles, sippy cups, and spoons. Help children create caregiving scenarios and praise children for their TLC. (Be sure to include kids of all genders in this activity—every child can benefit from practicing their caring skills.)

Try some therapeutic art, too. Art activities are more than just fun—they can provide children with a powerful outlet for their emotions. Alice Honig describes one example in her book Little Kids, Big Worries : “Lonnie drew a bus and then scribbled all over it with a brown marker. The teacher was puzzled. She did not act disappointed by his scribbles. She did ask him gently to tell her about his picture. The child soberly explained, “That is the ambulance that took my dad to the hospital.’ The brown scribbles over Lonnie’s picture expressed his dark scared feelings about his father’s illness.” Teach children how art can be a healthy way to process difficult emotions, and provide them with lots of different materials they can use to express whatever they might be feeling: pages from magazines, photos, stickers, paint and markers in vivid colors, etc.

We hope this post gave you some new ideas to try with kids, and we wish you and your loved ones continued good health and safety. Please let us know how else we can support you in the weeks to come!

MORE FREE RESOURCES

20 Stress-Busters for Young Children (designed for early childhood classrooms, but many of the activities can be adapted for home use)

24 Ways to Have Fun with Math at Home

Sample ASQ-3 Learning Activity Sheets 

Sample ASQ:SE-2 Learning Activity Sheets  

EXPLORE THE BOOKS

The activities in this post were adapted from and inspired by the following books:

Activities 1 and 8: Let’s Talk About Math  by Donna Kotsopoulos and Joanne Lee

Activities 2 and 3: Connecting Through Talk  by David K. Dickinson & Ann B. Morse

Activities 2, 4, 9, 15, and 22: Talk to Me, Baby!   by Betty Bardige

Activities 5-7: Blended Practices for Teaching Young Children in Inclusive Settings, Second Edition, by Jennifer Grisham-Brown, Mary Louise Hemmeter, and Kristie Pretti-Frontczak

Activities 10, 11, 14, and 16: ASQ®-3 Learning Activities by Elizabeth Twombly and Ginger Fink

Activities 12, 17, and 18: Early Literacy in Action  by Betty H. Bunce

Activities 13, 19, and 24:   ASQ®:SE-2 Learning Activities by Elizabeth Twombly, Leslie Munson, and Lois Pribble

Activities 20,21, and 23: Little Kids, Big Worries by Alice Sterling Honig

Stay up to date on the latest posts, news, strategies, and more!

• Communication & Language
• Early Childhood
• Family Collaboration
• Social-Emotional Development

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Amy Lambert says

How can I share this with my parents?

jlillis says

Hi Amy--would it work to distribute the link to this article via email? Or if your program has a website, you're very welcome to post it there, as long as you credit and link back to us. Would it help to have it in another format?

Lydia Vazquez says

Lydia Vazquez March 20, 2020 Is this available in another language (Spanish) I have children with dual language

Hi Lydia--we don't have a translation available at the moment, but I will pass this request on to our department director. Thanks!

Logan Brown says

Awesome article! It’s a tough time for children, who have to stay indoors and a challenging time for parents as well. Communal park times are indeed getting difficult, and if at all it’s possible, parents need to consider the sanitation of the playground equipment. This is applicable to the backyard DIY playgrounds as well.

Parul Gupta says

Great article. As a parent of a young child, these tips will really help me a lot to encourage my kid to try & learn new things.

So glad you found this article helpful! Thank you for reading!

Really Awesome Ideas You Have shared for the community, Thank you for sharing.

Its of great help, loved the ideas! I had personally tried this https://bit.ly/2PKSvgS for my kids to learn at home.

Thanks for sharing these great ideas with us. My favourite fun activity with my child is to give her a task sheet each day where she finishes tasks that include either colouring, counting and circling the correct answer, organising her to cabinet, etc. It keeps her busy and active. Sometimes she comes up with her own ideas and we try to play to few games.

Thanks, Noori! Great idea--we're so glad you shared it with us!

Best Nanny Training Institute in India says

Thanks for string this valuable information

Most important thing, like the key to success in homeschooling, is to entertain your child. The fact that she/he is spending time with paret is the big advantage. Other thing is that you shouldn't creat a regular school at home. You can be creative and/or go with the best methods. One of them is to use chess. You need to interest them with something. In my opinion chess is the best game, because it's impossible to get bored by it. So many possibilities, different situations, and you don't always need to play all the game or need someone to play with. You can always focus on solwing the chess problems. I can recommend a very good and briliant book, that can bring you a lot of fun. It's alll about chess. The rules of chess are very simple and children can learn them already from around the age of three. Not everyone can or wants to become a professional chess player but everyone can use chess for learning. For this purpous I can recommend a book (net-boss.org/chess-puzzles-for-kids-by-maksim-aksanov) with bunch of great exercises, which will help you and your kids to be better in this :)

Winnie says

Wow! Really the great ideas you have shared with us. It will be helpful to many parents to keep their kids engaged in various activities!

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Fun Learning Activities for Kids You Can Do at Home

They'll never know these DIY delights are good for them

School isn't the only place for learning activities. When your child's at home, you're their teacher. But everything doesn't have to feel like a classroom lesson. Get your kids excited about discovering something new by disguising the learning activities as a fun time. Try these engaging and effective activities that you can do at home.

Play Learning Games

Robert Daly/Getty Images

Put learning in motion by playing games that get your kids moving while learning about a variety of subjects.

For preschoolers, start with a basic game that helps him learn farm animals, numbers, colors (create a hue scavenger hunt!), and shapes. Adapt the game for school-age children to cover anatomy, world government, foreign language, and history. What you choose to teach with this game is only limited by your imagination. You can also explore educational apps together.

Learn Phonics Basics

FatCamera/Getty Images

Teaching your child to read is one of the most wonderful gifts you will ever give them. Learning the basics of phonics (that is, the idea that letters make certain sounds), prepares kids for spelling and reading readiness.  

You don't have to sit still in a chair endlessly repeating letter sounds. Try activities that make learning phonics an adventure instead of a tedious lesson. Kids can play games (look for things that start with certain sounds), hunt for letters, make alphabet books, and even use a digital camera to bring their phonics lessons to life.

Practice Writing

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Writing is a skill your kids will use throughout their life. Teach them to write with methods that go beyond pencil to paper. Get messy. Let them trace. Connect the dots. Use Play-Doh to shape letters or draw letters in shaving cream. They'll be entertained and better prepared for school.

If you have preschoolers, help them learn the alphabet and the motions of each letter.

For school-age children, encourage them to improve their penmanship by helping you in your everyday writing tasks.

Identify Colors

Thanit Weerawan/Getty Images

Kids are interested in learning their colors at an early age.

With a pack of colorful pom-poms, you'll put them on a path to identify colors, learn how to count, and start sorting, which also encourages gross motor skills. At the same time, you're helping them develop their fine motor skills by letting them pick up the tiny objects.  

Develop Counting Skills

Kay Blaschke/Getty Images

Teaching your child how to count seems so simple but reciting numbers in the correct order is only the beginning.

Play a game that lets them physically touch the objects they're counting. As an added bonus, research shows that hands-on projects activate kids' brains and help them learn better.  Kids who are more advanced in their counting skills can try a variation of the game that will challenge them to think beyond counting to three and in terms of how many objects they actually see before them.

MoMo Productions/Getty Images

Math is an easy subject to teach because it's all around us. Add the number of people waiting at a restaurant. Divide the number of soccer players on the field by the number of water bottles on the bench to see how many people don't have anything to drink.

For preschoolers, your future math whiz can get an early start on number recognition (look for digits when playing "I Spy") and learning to count. For school-age children, tackle fractions and other advanced math problems with math games, an abacus, and even cookies!

Enrich Their Minds With Music

kate_sept2004/Getty Images

"Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider" may be on a constant loop in your children's playlists. But there are so many more musical activities you can play together to instill a love of music they'll carry with them throughout their lives.

Hit the right note with fun music classes, making your own instruments (add bells to a paper plate to create a tambourine, for example), and playing musical games. Record instrument sounds and play them back to see if your child can get the answer right, or create a music trivia game and act out the answers.

Preschoolers love the one-on-one time with mom and dad and school-age children can begin formal training to enhance their musical skills.

Try Science Experiments at Home

asiseeit/Getty Images

Think "science experiment" and you might have visions of a chemistry lab explosion. Fear not: You don't have to turn your kitchen into a blast zone to teach your kids about science at home.

Preschoolers will enjoy simple science experiments that don't require much of an effort on your part (use gumdrops and toothpicks to create a shape), yet are jam-packed with fun learning opportunities. Your school-age children can try science experiments that are a bit more involved but won't leave your house a disaster area when they're finished.

Plant a Garden

Adam Hester/Getty Images

There's more to planting a garden than sticking a seed in the ground and waiting for something to grow. Gardens are lessons in science, nutrition, and patience all rolled into one plot of dirt in your backyard.

A garden teaches preschoolers how plants come to life. It's also an easy way to teach him about nutrition and get him excited about eating the vegetables he's grown. School-age children can keep a gardening journal, study a plant's scientific name, and grow more difficult plants.

Create a Website

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That magic box on your desk is an open door to learning. Turn on the computer and create a website together.

Preschoolers may not be the best website designers, but they're not too young to have their own website. With your help, they can take pictures for their site, tell you what they want to say on their blog, and learn what it takes to make a website run smoothly. When they're older, you can redesign the site together and turn over the keys without having to do as much for them.

School-age children are ready to manage most of their own site, which will help improve their writing and thinking skills. You can also use their website to teach them how to stay safe online .

Explore World Cultures

 Photographer/Getty Images

Put down the textbook. A little creativity can help you teach your child about world cultures in a way that will make learning fun while enriching their awareness of other people's traditions and ways of life. The world will never look the same to him again.

Preschoolers can enjoy making crafts he might find in other countries and tasting authentic foods you cook together. School-age children can study cultural etiquette, find a penpal from that country, and learn words from the official language.

Mcarthur G, Sheehan Y, Badcock NA, et al.  Phonics training for English-speaking poor readers .  Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2018;11:CD009115. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD009115.pub3

Klein J, Chen A, Burdet E. Instrumented sorting block box for children, a preliminary experiment . IEEE Int Conf Rehabil Robot . 2011. doi:10.1109/ICORR.2011.5975458

Rushton, S. Neuroscience, Early childhood education and play: We are doing it right! .  Early Childhood Educ J. 2001;39:89–94. doi:10.1007/s10643-011-0447-z

Bolger D. Eating from the garden . J Nutr Educ Behav . 2011;43(4):306-e1. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2011.03.141

Penn State Extension. We are different, we are the same: Teaching young children about diversity .

By Apryl Duncan Apryl Duncan is a stay-at-home mom and internationally-published writer with years of experience providing advice to others like her.

Littles Love Learning

Let's Teach Your Child to Read Together

PRESCHOOL LEARNING ACTIVITIES TO DO AT HOME

Looking for FREE & easy preschool learning activities to do at home? You’re in the right place! Keep reading for 8 weeks worth of activity ideas for your little one!

Is your little one at home with you (maybe for summer break, a long vacation, or virtual learning) and you need some activity ideas to keep them busy?

Or are you a teacher looking to send activity ideas home with your students that are low prep but high engagement?

Then these  Preschool & Pre-K At-Home Activities  are perfect for you!

For each weekday (Monday – Friday) for 8 weeks, you’ll have 4 activity ideas to choose from. These activities cover the most important preschool skills:

• Gross Motor

That’s 20 activities per week for 8 weeks, which is a total of  160 preschool learning activities to do at home!

You can have your little one complete 1, 2, 3, or 4 activities per day…it’s totally up to you!

And the best part?

These activities are  VERY low prep , so there’s no need to spend a ton of money on supplies!

Most of these learning activities require only basic supplies that you probably already have at home, such as paper, markers, scissors, post-it notes, and paper plates.

A few of the activities require printables, but those can be downloaded for FREE from our Free Activity Library .

Ready to check out the activities?

Click on each week below to get started learning at home with your preschooler!

• BLOG SERIES MAIN PAGE

If you’d rather have these activities in a printable PDF format (instead of having to navigate to all the different pages on my website), you can purchase them from my shop HERE :

If you use any of these activity ideas, let me know! You can comment below or find me on  Instagram  ( @littleslovelearningblog ). I’d love to know how your little ones liked them!

love this post? pin it for later!

Happy Learning!

20 Best Learning Activities for Toddlers to Get Them Ready for Kindergarten

Have fun with letters, numbers, and shapes using these educational activities for toddlers.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

A word of caution though: Even though toddlers and preschoolers seem so big compared to the babies they once were, they still have no common sense at all, so any activity still has to be closely supervised. This is especially true for counting activities or projects that involve small pieces, which may present choking hazards, or anything involving water, which could be a drowning risk (even if it's just a small bucket of water). But with you guiding them through, they'll love these projects so much, the'll forget all about those buzzing, blinking toys in the toy bin.

Clothespin Color Match

Not only does this activity help toddlers shore up their knowledge of colors, it works on their fine motor coordination, since they have to pinch, pull, and place the clothespins.

Get the tutorial at Chalk Academy »

RELATED: 20 Learning Activities for Kids to Entertain Students While Boosting Their Brains

Paper Building Blocks

Paper can't be as strong as a wooden block — can it? For this engineering activity, you can show kids how even a flexible material like paper can become sturdy enough to hold up a weight (like a couple of Oreos!) if you shape it a certain way.

Get the tutorial at Babble Dabble Do »

Water Walking Experiment

A super-easy way to bring a bit of the science lab home, the "water walking" experiment illuminates two concepts: First, the water "walks" over the paper towel bridges (demonstrating capillarity), and then the colors mix to make new ones (the yellow water and the blue water "walk" into the same cup to make green). All you need is cups, food coloring, and paper towels.

Get the tutorial at Fun Learning for Kids »

RELATED: 23 Easy Science Experiments for Kids You Can Do at Home With Everyday Items

Number Pom Pom Challenge

Another activity that uses hand-eye coordination as well as number recognition, this cardboard tube maze is an exciting challenge for little counters. The object is to tilt the box so that the pom pom rolls through the tubes in number order.

Get the tutorial at Raising Dragons »

Shape Scavenger Hunt

Sure, your tot can recognize shapes in block form, but can they find the same shapes out in the wild? Send them on a scavenger hunt to see how shapes are used in everyday life.

Get the tutorial at The Many Little Joys »

RELATED : 22 Fun Scavenger Hunt Ideas to Keep Your Kids Guessing

Adding Boxes

What's 2 + 4? This simple machine will help kids figure it out. Put two poms in one tube, four in the other, and count the total in the box at the end.

Get the tutorial at The Best Ideas for Kids »

Word Family Houses

For preschoolers who are learning to read, "word families" show how one group of sounds can form different words. Spin the wheel to show how the "-un" word ending can turn from "run" into "fun" or "bun."

Get the tutorial at The Measured Mom »

RELATED: The 20 Best Toddler Activities

Muffin Tin Counting

Muffin tins are perfect for sorting and counting activities, because the whole point is keeping all the pieces neat and tidy. In addition to sorting by number, you can also use them to match colors if you line the tins with different shades of construction paper instead of the numbered circles.

Get the tutorial at Early Learning Ideas »

Craft Stick Names

Teach them to spell the most important words ever: their names. This easy matching activity lets kids practice the order of the letters in their names; if you don't have craft sticks on-hand, clothespins would also work.

Get the tutorial at Play-to-Learn Preschool »

RELATED: 20 Fun Activities for 1-Year-Olds You Can Make With Items You Already Have

Sink or Float

It's an introduction to the Scientific Method: Kids can make a hypothesis about whether or not an object will sink or float in a tub of water, test out their theories, and record their results.

Get the tutorial at the Stay-at-Home Mom Survival Guide »

Feed the Monster

The monster is hungry! But what does he want to eat? Move the strip of paper below him to reveal his lettery cravings, then have your tot find a block to match.

Get the tutorial at Happy Tot Shelf »

Missing Number Match

If they're counting from 1 to 10, give them a little challenge: Write a number line on a craft stick, but leave a blank space that needs to be filled by one of the numbered clothespins. Once they've mastered the matching game, move on and do 10–20!

Get the tutorial at Planning Playtime »

Felt Board Shapes

Remember Colorforms? Felt shapes can offer the same kind of pleasure, and kids can combine and re-combine the shapes to make different pictures. It's a learning activity and wall art in one.

Get the tutorial at Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home »

Rhyming Dominoes

Traditional dominoes are good for practicing numbers, but with a few tweaks you can also make the game a way to practice rhymes, too. For kids who can't read yet, you can use pictures instead of words and still match up word sounds.

Get the tutorial at No Time for Flash Cards »

Counting Carrots

Part-craft, part-counting practice, this activity gives kids a chance to put the correct number of sprouts on top of a construction-paper carrot. The geometry of this craft is so simple, too, you can also use it as a shape refresher for triangle and rectangles.

Get the tutorial at Housing a Forest »

Shape Match Game

A twist on the classic memory game: Instead of flipping over cards, kids can make matches by pulling craft sticks out of an old egg carton. The great thing about this game is that it's so easy to pack up, it's the perfect activity to bring to Grandma's house.

Get the tutorial at Days With Grey »

"Bear Hunt" Map

Plot out the route that the characters take in the We're Going on a Bear Hunt book (or song ), and teach kids how certain geographical features (water, landmarks) are represented by certain symbols on a map. If they're excited by maps, show them how to make one of their rooms, their backyard, or even their neighborhood.

Get the tutorial at Buggy and Buddy »

DIY Musical Instruments

It's easy to make different percussive instruments out out household items. Experiment to see how different fillers (beans, rice, pebbles) make different sounds, then try using them in different rhythms to sharpen those counting skills, too.

Get the tutorial at Team Cartwright »

Monster Craft

This craft ties in multiple subject areas: After reading the book Love Monster , kids can design and create their own creatures, then count the number of eyes, teeth, ears, and feet.

Get the tutorial at Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds »

Tape Shape Sorting

Combine shape sorting with a scavenger hunt, and use painter's tape to make different outlines all over the house. Then, kids have to take their construction-paper shapes and search high and low to find a match.

Get the tutorial at Toddler Approved »

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75 Activities for Kids at Home

Lauren Anderson

Without packed schedules, school, sports, friends and clubs, filling our days with our kids at home can feel daunting. Read the list below so that you’ll be confident and prepared with these indoor activities for the next time you hear, “I’m bored!” These indoor activities are perfect for playtime, during a break from distance learning, or even on the weekends.

More: 25 Toys, Books, and Games to Stock Up On Before We're Stuck Inside this Winter

Whether you're stuck inside on a rainy day or are quarantining and social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic, these simple and fun activities are sure to be a hit with the whole family, even the older kids!

DIY Crafts and Printables

1. Craft Night

Pull out your craft box and let your littles’ imaginations take over. Give them construction paper, glue, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, markers, pom poms, paper plates, toilet paper rolls, popsicle sticks, shaving cream, and anything else you can think of for a DIY extravaganza. Unless you really love cleaning, strongly consider avoiding glitter.

2. Paint by Number

There are so many paint by number kits on Amazon to choose from depending on your kid’s style.

3. Hand Print Wall Art

Make some home decor using your little one’s hand prints. It will be fun for years to come to look back at those tiny hands.

4. Practice Photography

Learn some tips and tricks to use your camera. Gather your family to do an at home photo shoot with your new skills.

5. Make Pottery

Take an online pottery class or find a pottery kit like this one from Amazon to get you started.

6. Friendship Bracelets

Relive your childhood and learn to make friendship bracelets together.

7. Scrapbook

Start putting together a scrapbook and enjoy reliving old memories with your family. It can be basic or you can get creative with stickers, printed paper and craft scissors.

8. Time Capsule

This is one of our all time favorite activity ideas perfect for New Year's, a birthday, or anytime at all. Put together a time capsule with your family. There’s no limit to what you can include. Consider photos, trinkets, current events and little memories, but get creative! Decide when you will open it and hide it away. (You can also use our free printable time capsule activity to get you started).

9. Fun with Cardboard Boxes

Get creative with all of those boxes from your online orders! Make a tunnel or a castle out of boxes. Get creative and paint or color it with markers.

10. Decorate a Recycling Bin

Decorate your own recycling bin and learn about the process to get your littles excited about sustainability.

11. Create a Sensory Bin

Sensory bins are a great way to engage all the senses to learn about the world around us. Luckily you can create your own at home with a few simple items like a bin, some rice, a spoon and a few toys. Sensory activities can be beneficial for kids of all ages, but are our top choice for activities for toddlers.

12. Make Sock Puppets

Make your own sock puppets and have a puppet show.

13. Tie Dye Shirts

Tie dye is making a comeback! Jump on the trend and tie dye some matching shirts.

14. Paper Mache

Learn to make paper mache and watch your littles get their hands dirty while they create some art.

15. Make Playdough

Make your own fun colored play dough with food coloring or kool aid. Check out our favorite homemade playdough recipes .

16. Perler Beads

The colorful little beads, also known as fuse beads or melty beads, are used to create a design and then melted together into one solid piece with an iron. You can purchase them on Amazon .

17. Latch Hook

Create some art with a cozy feel by learning to latch hook.

18. Learn Origami

Learn the beautiful art of folding colorful squares of paper into different shapes or animals.

19. Printable Coloring Pages

Bust out a box of crayons and check out our printables section for printable coloring pages for the whole family to enjoy. Pro tip: print personalized coloring pages using your own photos for extra fun while coloring.

20. Make Slime

Learning to make slime will introduce an added layer of fun to playing with it. Check out our favorite non-toxic slime recipes .

Toys and Games

21. Family Game Night

Host a family game night! These can be board games or party games, like charades.

22. Family Movie Night

Pick out a movie, grab some blankets and put together your favorite concession style snacks for a family movie night.

23. Make a Ball Pit

Turn a pack n’ play or large cardboard box into a ball bit. A big bag of plastic balls is inexpensive on Amazon and guaranteed entertainment for your littles.

24. Beanbag Toss

Have a bean bag toss tournament. You can use laundry hampers and socks as a makeshift alternative if you don’t have a set up at home.

25. Do a Puzzle

Put together a 1,000-piece puzzle as a family. (We recommend this one from Amazon that might help ease the wanderlust blues.)

26. Build a Lego Home

Legos are so much fun and allow you to get lost in creativity for a few hours at a time. Buy a set or get creative and build your own creation.

Imaginative Play Ideas

27. Build a Blanket Fort

Gather all the sheets and blankets from your linen closet and let those creative little minds construct a cozy fort. When it’s done, snuggle in and read some books by flashlight inside together.

28. Put on a Performance

Write and perform a play, have a dance recital or a talent show.

29. Indoor Camping Trip

Set up your tent and grab a flashlight and a mug of hot chocolate for some living room camping.

30. Scavenger Hunt

Design an indoor scavenger hunt for your kiddos. Give them a list of items to find or turn it into a treasure hunt with a special prize waiting at the end.

31. Tea Party

There’s no better reason to pull out your fancy tea set. Set out some snacks and have a casual or fancy tea party with your littles.

32. Play Dress Up

Littles love wearing our clothes and shoes and let's face it, they look adorable when they do. Encourage creativity by playing dress up.

33. At Home Spa Day

Relax and model good self care to your littles with an at home spa day. Soak your feet, put on a face mask and take some deep breaths.

34. Plan a Future Vacation

Part of the thrill of vacation may be from the fun of looking forward to it! Look at a big map and let your kids dream up a future destination and plan your next get away.

35. Pen Pals

Team up with another family to be pen pals. Drop a letter in the mail box for a break from our digital world and screen time.

36. Fancy Dinner Night

Get dressed up and have a fancy dinner night with a home cooked meal or takeout.

37. Make a Family Movie

Make and record a movie. You can write a script and act it out or film a few little moments from each day to compile them all at the end of the year as a keepsake.

38. Make an at Home Museum

Create some art and hang it on a “gallery wall” in your family room. Let each kiddo describe their art and place a little museum style label next to it.

39. Play School

Take turns teaching each other about your favorite subjects.

40. Attend a Virtual Concert

There are many opportunities to attend a virtual concert. Pick a genre your family enjoys and spend the night listening to a live performance from the comfort of your home.

41. Take a Virtual Vacation

Pick a place you have always wanted to visit as a family and plan your virtual vacation day. You can find fun trips ranging from Machu Picchu to the San Diego Zoo .

Learning Activities

42. International Night

Let your kids look at a big map and pick a country they’re interested in. Learn five facts about that country while you cook a dish customary to that place.

43. Theme Weeks

Create a theme week such as “the human body” or “dinosaurs.” Make a treat, read books and watch videos all week that align with your theme. We will be making eyeball cupcakes and watching an episode of The Magic School Bus.

44. Learn an Instrument

Playing an instrument can help to reduce stress, teach patience and foster creativity. Using time at home to learn to play a new instrument can be a fun way to teach these skills and create beautiful music. You can choose anything from a recorder to a ukulele.

Plan a day to stay in your pajamas and read. You can read aloud to your littles or read silently together on the couch. You can make a colorful goal sheet to track your goal number of books to read each month to keep the motivation up.

46. Creative Writing

Write silly or scary stories. You can all write your own and read aloud to each other or brainstorm ideas together and write one story.

47. Make a Bird Feeder

Make and fill a bird feeder. You’ll have fun putting it together and then can enjoy learning about all the birds that it attracts.

48. Learn Another Language

Learning another language is easy and fun with apps like DuoLingo.

49. Ant Farm

Buy an ant farm on Amazon and learn about the lifecycle of ants while observing them first hand.

50. Watch Caterpillars Turn to Butterflies

Put together a terrarium with a few caterpillars. Give them food, sunshine and patience and watch them turn into beautiful butterflies.

51. Have a Science Fair

Let your kiddos put their smarts on display. Create some science experiments and host a science fair where your kiddos teach you and each other about their project.

52. Grow a Garde

Grow some plants, vegetables and herbs. You can plant them outdoors in a garden or get creative with a windowsill collection. Get your littles involved in growing their own food.

53. Take an Online Class

Learn something new as a family. Take an online class of your family’s choice. Learning a new skill can be a bonding experience.

54. Visit National Parks and Historic Sights from Home

Take a virtual trip to a beautiful natural wonder like a National Park and learn about the local ecosystems.

55. Learn to Juggle

This fun party trick will help teach patience and hand eye coordination.

Fun in the Kitchen

56. Cutout Cookies

Mix up a batch of your favorite cookie dough and find your cookie cutters (or buy these kid-friendly ones on Amazon ) in the back of your cabinet. Let everyone decorate their own cookies with icing, sprinkles, colorful sugar and mini candies.

57. Learn a New Recipe

Open up a cookbook and learn a new recipe together. I am eager to get my hands on a copy of Claire Safftiz’s Dessert Person for some fun and elaborate baking projects.

58. Have an Indoor Picnic

There’s something special about packing a picnic lunch. Grab a blanket and assortment of your favorite snacks and have a picnic in your living room or backyard.

59. Bake a Family Recipe

Pull out the old recipe box or call a family member to get the recipe for a beloved dish. Make it with your kiddos and tell them about memories from your childhood.

60. Build Your Own Personal Pizza

Make or buy some pizza dough, cut up a bunch of fun toppings and place them on a big wooden cutting board. Let your littles roll out their own personal pizzas and load up with toppings that they love.

61. Holiday-Themed Truffles

Pinterest is loaded with ideas for cute holiday-themed Oreo truffles no matter what time of year. Last year we made turkeys with big cartoon eyes for Thanksgiving and they were a huge hit. This year we will be making Oreo red velvet for Valentine's Day. The real challenge is not eating all the Oreos before the truffles come together.

62. Make Breakfast for Dinner

Get out your waffle maker or make fun silly-shaped pancakes for breakfast for dinner night.

63. Sushi Night

Learn how to roll your own sushi. Let your kiddos pick fun ingredients to put into your rolls. You can be daring and get sushi grade fish from your local seafood shop or cut different vegetables and chicken or shrimp. For a kid-friendly treat, replace rice with Rice Krispies treats and stuff them with Swedish fish!

64. Make Homemade Ice Cream

Learn about science while making a tasty treat with home made ice cream in a bag.

65. Online Cooking Class

Take an online cooking class to step up your meal prep game. Classes range from foodie classes to cooking with kids and everything in between.

66. Decorate Cupcakes

Make some edible art with colorful icing, chocolate, sprinkles and googly eyes.

Take an online family yoga class to stretch, move and relax.

68. Take an Online Fitness Class

Find a fun themed class like this superhero fitness class for kids to get those little bodies moving.

69. Mindfulness

Learn the art of mindfulness with an app, like Calm, or some flash cards from Amazon .

70. Create an Obstacle Course

Build an obstacle course in your living room and race against the clock to finish it.

71. Play Freeze Dance

This is a fun simple way to get moving and bring out those endorphins and giggles with some upbeat music.

72. Hide and Seek

Good old hide and seek needs no explanation.

Giving Back

73. Donate Clothes and Toys

Teach and practice some gratitude by reviewing your belongings and donating items still in good shape to a local family in need.

74. Make Care Packages

Assemble and pack care packages with toiletries and other essentials. Drop them off at your local shelter or distribute to unhoused members of your community.

75. Make a Meal for Someone in Need

Make a meal for a new mom or elderly neighbor and drop it off on their doorstep.

Looking for more ideas? Check our Entertainment and Activities Center for inspiration.

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50 Awesome Homemade Games for Kids to Play and Learn

Shared by Mary Catherine 6 Comments

Check out this huge collection of homemade games for kids . Games are a great option for activities for preschoolers at home or school! And these games, in particular, have lots of fun learning opportunities that cover math, literacy, logic, fine motor skills, and more.

I’m a big believer in fun learning activities for kids. This ensures that the children are engaged and interested.

And that engagement and interest helps the learning stick more in the children’s brains.

Plus, and this cannot be overstated, learning SHOULD be fun! And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with including games and activities that are fun in your day.

Table of Contents

Homemade Games for Kids

These DIY games are perfect for preschool and elementary classrooms, but they’d be great at home too.

Since there are so many amazing game ideas below, I broke them up into two categories so they’re a little easier to navigate.

The first group is filled with printable games, while the second group has non-printable games to try.

Printable Homemade Games for Kids

Here are some great DIY games that you can make with free printables.

Click on each of the highlighted words to read more about each of the games (and grab each coordinating printable).

The first few game ideas are from Fun-A-Day. I’ve enjoyed playing them with a variety of preschool students, as well as my son.

Pig Math Game for a Farm Theme

Apple Math Game

Printable Snowman Game

Roll A Snowman

Printable Valentine Games  

Make Way for Ducklings Game

More Printable DIY Games

I couldn’t just stop at my own games, though.

Here are more printable homemade games for kids from around the web.

How to Make a Cootie Catcher | The Natural Homeschool

Safari Animals Seek and Find | The Purposeful Nest

Letter Sudoku | Our Family Code

Printable LEGO Challenge Game | Artsy Fartsy Mama

DIY Rainbow Game | Mosswood Connections

Roll to Write Game | Walking by the Way

Mystery Grid Art Challenge | Pink Stripey Socks

Hop the Alphabet Board Game | Mama Smiles

Number Dash Fast Math Game | Gluesticks

Missing Letter Game | Learn with Play at Home

Catch a Bug Free Printable Game | Picklebums

Blueberries for Sal Counting Game | Spark and Pook

Indoor Scavenger Hunt | Edventures with Kids

Sight Word Game | Brain Power Boy

Cars and Trucks Bingo Game | Brain Power Boy

Watermelon Tic-Tac-Toe | Teach Me Mommy

Homemade Games for Kids at Home or School

Below you’ll find even more homemade games for kids. These are games you and the children can make with a variety of materials.

Click on the highlighted text to read more about each of the games.

The first six links are DIY games I’ve played with preschool students (and my son) over the years.

Rhyming Games for Preschoolers

Spring Math Game  

Christmas Math Game with Bells

Seed Matching Game

Bowling with Coconuts

Shell Connect-the-Dots

Creative Homemade Games for Kids

I found even more fun homemade games for kids around the web. Be sure to check them out too!

Easy Sudoku Puzzle | School Time Snippets

Homemade Giant Tangrams | JDaniel4’s Mom

Checkerboard Algorithm | JDaniel4’s Mom

Letter Recognition Drive and Park | Days with Grey

Kindergarten Shape Build-Up | Days with Grey

Minecraft Lego Grid Game | Stir the Wonder

Construction Sorting Game | Stir the Wonder

Roll a Koala Math Game | The STEM Mum

Muffin Tin Reading Games | Growing Book by Book

Superhero Coding Game | Little Bins for Little Hands

LEGO Math Ten Frame Games | LalyMom

Teach Coding with a Deck of Cards | Teach Your Kid to Code

Math Fact Dominoes | Playdough to Plato

Sand and Seashells Writing Game | The Educators’ Spin On It

LEGO Memory Game for Kids | The Educators’ Spin On It

Tic-Tac-Toe Nature Craft | Growing Family

Mystery Sensory Balloons | Edventures with Kids

Oh Snap! Sight Word Game | School Time Snippets

Post It Name Game | School Time Snippets

DIY Math Games with Cardboard Tubes | Artsy Momma

Finding North Hiking Game | Go Science Kids

Origami Paper Cup and Ball Game | Red Ted Art

Popsicle Stick Color Matching Game | Darcy and Brian

I hope all of these homemade games for kids have inspired you! Which of the DIY games will you be trying with the kids first?

If you have any more homemade game ideas, feel free to leave me a comment below and tell me about it.

Materials to Make Your Own Games

Now that we’ve talked games, let’s jump into materials.

Many of the homemade games for kids shared here can be made with just a few items. You might have some of those items on-hand already!

Here are a few ideas to get you set up for making your own games for the kids (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):

Done-For-You Resources

Preschool Teacher 101 has a ton of fully developed early learning resources. If you’re a preschool teacher, be sure to check out our membership options . Click on the images below for more information about each resource.

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February 24, 2014 at 12:55 pm

Wonderful round-up this week – as always, thanks for hosting!

March 2, 2014 at 4:33 pm

Oh, my..I have tons of ideas now, thanks for sharing this 🙂

May 14, 2014 at 11:43 pm

You’re welcome, Renae! Thanks for taking the time to link up. 🙂

October 5, 2015 at 8:15 am

Hey I feel like, creative things done at home can help kids learn better. Now new ideas has started rolling in my mind.

May 21, 2020 at 10:58 am

Such a fantastic resource as we head into summer!

May 23, 2020 at 10:46 am

That was my hope – lots of great ideas to keep the kids engaged and having fun!

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Easy Play to Learn Activities and Printables for Little Learners

70+ Hands-On Activities for Kindergarten 

4 Year Olds , ACTIVITIES , ALPHABET , Hands-On Learning , KINDERGARTEN , MATH We use affiliate links and may earn commission from purchases made through those links.

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Kindergarten Activities are one of my favorite activities to bring forth. 

Activities for kindergarten have a special place in my heart because when my oldest was about to be in kindergarten, i decided to homeschool her for that year. , i loved teaching her and learning through play with books and different methods of teaching in a fun way. , kindergarten is such a wonderful and playful year of learning in a very fun way , we didn’t really use worksheets very much and instead focused on reading a lot of books and practicing cvc words a lot , related: to l earn the steps i took to teach my kindergartener how to read, go here  , differentiated instruction lesson plans for kindergarten were so much fun because we used a lot of wholesome curriculum and resources. , you can read more about our kindergarten experience here. , alongside resources, play to learn and hands on activities are also very important. , i really enjoyed introducing my kindergartener at the time activities that she can learn while playing such as:, diy fish pipe cleaner counting activity , spring math activities, spooky alphabet match , diy learning box for kids, apple tree math matching activity , color matching activity , i will be sharing below how different categories on how i will teach my kindergartener and these categories are as follows: , learning games for kindergarteners, fun learning activities for kindergarten, easy games for kindergarten, math activities for kindergarten, alphabet activities for kindergarten, related: are you looking for how to teach kindergarten at home check out our kindergarten busy book that is a great resource alongside any kindergarten curriculum , what are the activities for kindergarten , kindergarten activities are composed of a set of different skills. , here are some kindergarten activity ideas:, uppercase letters, lowercase letters, skip counting, and more , if you’d like to learn more about how i taught my kindergartener at the time to read, go here , what can i teach my kindergartener at home , i will be sharing below many different play to learn activities you can try at home that require a few homemade essentials. , if you are looking for some of the basic skills kindergarteners would need to know, here they are: , uppercase/lowercase letters, even and odd numbers, 2d and some 3d shapes, pre-primer sight words, and more… , how can i make kindergarten more fun , you can make kindergarten fun by incorporating different fun hands on activities, kindergarten learning games and kindergarten ideas in a fun way , i will share over 70 play to learn kindergarten activities with you below 🙂 , i am so excited , let’s get into them…., 70+ activities for kindergarten, learning games for kindergarteners , salt writing tray – active littles, rainbow sprinkle writing tray – active littles, halloween counting mats for kindergarten – active littles, will it sink or float – the chirping moms, color word car park – days with grey, hands on number line – days with grey, math card games – we are teachers, abc rocks – hands on as we grow, make 10 – mama papa bubba, rain cloud in a jar – active littles, traveling waters science experiment – active littles, leaf proof bag – active littles, fun learning activities for kindergarten , diy learning box activity for kids – active littles, number counting mats – active littles, hands on shapes – learning 4 kids, lego bricks for learning math – we are teachers, mouse counting mats 1-20 – active littles, 10+ math activities for kindergarten – active littles, easy games for kindergarten , diy fish pipe cleaner kindergarten activity – active littles, paperclip float science experiment – raising life long learners, sight word puzzles – this reading mama, caterpillar sight words – this reading mama, sight word find – busy toddler, ocean sight word search – happy toddler playtime, pool noodle spin and spell – raising dragons, water cycle kids activity – montessori from the heart , math strategies for kids – montessori from the heart, 8 skills for kindergarten readiness – teach talk inspire, lima bean name activity – active littles, math activities for kindergarten , flower math 5 year old activities – active littles, kindergarten busy book – active littles, a pple tree match subtraction activity – active littles, ping pong math activity (adding and subtracting) – active littles, kindergarten number match – busy toddler, add to 10 kindergarten activity – busy toddler, five number activities – frugal fun 4 boys, kindergarten math learning game – raising dragons, math activities for kindergarten – the best ideas for kids, multiage math review game – little pine learners, egg carton addition flowers – sparkling buds, counting and addition tray – imagination tree, sticky note addition – life over c’s, alphabet and literacy activities for kindergarten , spooky alphabet match for kindergarten – active littles, literacy activity using foam letters – active littles, alphabet letters shaving cream activity (make words) – active littles, alphabet magnetic sorting + vowels activity + free printable – active littles, ping pong alphabet activity (making words) – active littles, name recognition puzzle activities for 5 year olds – play teach repeat, name recognition activity – play teach repeat , fun activities for kindergarten class – notepad flip – raising dragons, 10+ alphabet activities for kindergarten – active littles, related: looking for free kindergarten math games check out this one here , books for kindergarteners recommendations:, related products, looking for free printables and activities.

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Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

dy•nam•ic constant change, progress, activity

• 25 Summer Homeschool Ideas To Keep The Learning Spark Alive

June 24, 2023 | 1 Comment This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy .

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Today, I’m sharing summer homeschool ideas to keep the learning spark burning. Also, grab more ideas on my How to Homeschool page.

Even if you school year-round, most of us need a change during summer.

Whether you’re looking to add a few hands-on ideas, a summer unit study or a fun workbook, you’ll love these ideas.

Also, summertime is a time to focus on those subjects like art, music, and maybe even science, which we would love to do more of.

Look at How to Incorporate Subjects into a Fun Homeschool Cooking Unit Study.

Table of Contents

Summer Homeschool Ideas

As I mentioned summer can be a mix of fun and learning.

Look at some of these classes we love to do during summer.

• It’s a great time to start learning music at home. Look at these self-paced Learn Music in our Homeschool courses . From 15 minutes lessons to 20th century music, there is something for all ages.
• And language arts doesn’t have to be boring or if you’re like me and have an independent learner, these online self-paced courses from Literary Adventures for Kids have so many fun books to choose from.
• Then if you’re looking for your kids to take formal but fun cooking lessons, do Kids Cook Real Food.

Then I’m not above a few fun workbooks especially when it’s hot outside.

• But a summer workbook where all subjects are included allows opportunity for review and easy days.

More Summer Homeschool Learning Activities

In addition, I have a few more ideas if you’re homeschooling multiple ages.

20 Fun Summer Learning Activities And Make A Rock Sundial

A to z list: 100 fun summer homeschool unit study ideas.

• 30+ Summer Activities for Middle School Kids
• 11 Fun Summer Activities for Middle Schooler
• How Do Sharks Float STEM Activity Free Shark Unit Study & Notebooking Pages
• Fun Kids Hands-on Egg Carton Sea Turtle Life Cycle Activity
• 10 Edible Beach Crafts For Teens and Make Edible Beach Glass
• 11 Fun Summer Activities for Middle Schoolers

Finally, look at these fun summer learning ideas.

Summer Learning Ideas

Use one or two of these ideas to add to your summer learning program. Add a few hands-on projects to keep learning fun.

Fun Pineapple Candle

Squeeze in more fun summer activities for middle schoolers by making this fun pineapple candle. Plus, there is more to homeschool middle school than just academic subjects.

Sun Art – Cyanotype STEAM Project

Have a WOW moment with kids this summer making Sun Art using chemistry and sunlight to make cool art. This is a very inexpensive, easy project with lots of STEM lessons.

Summer Must-Do: Ice Cream in a Bag

Ice Cream in a bag is a delicious summer science experiment.

Fun Making Ocean Layers Soap | Summer Activities for Middle Schoolers

If you’re diving into a study on the ocean layers, doing summer activities for middle schoolers, or want to do an ocean unit study and ocean lapbook, our kids will love this ocean layers soap. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

Jellyfish Name Craft For Kids [Editable Template]

This jellyfish name craft offers a delightful and engaging way for children to practice letter recognition and fine motor skills.

Build Vocabulary with a Summer Word Jar (Plus Tips and Ideas)

Boost your kids' vocabulary with a summer word jar

These summer unit study ideas will keep kids of all ages having fun learning with topics they will be eager to study. Summer is a perfect time to get in some relaxed themed learning with unit studies

Octopus Cutting Activity Pages For Kids [Free Printable]

These octopus cutting activity pages provide an entertaining and educational way for kids to improve their fine motor skills. They have adorable octopus pictures that will keep little ones engaged while they practice their scissor skills.

20 Fun Summer Ideas for a Teen

I may have a bit more than 20 fun summer ideas for a teen, but having some ideas to help out during the summer when hormones boredom hits will hopefully keep you and your teen getting along.

Decorate the Ice Cream Play Dough Mats

Set up your own ice cream shop pretend play with this fun printable playdough ice cream mat activity.

Shadow Names Outdoor Summer Activity

https://intheplayroom.co.uk/shadow-names-outdoor-summer-activity/

Super Easy and Fun Aquarium Jar Craft For Summer Activities for Middle Schoolers

Your kids will love this fun aquarium jar craft for summer activities for middle schoolers. Whether you’re diving into a study about the oceans or doing a shark unit study, hands-on activities are the way to go. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

Make An Adorable DIY Nature Explorer Kit (from a Shoebox!)

Turn a humble shoebox into an exciting DIY Nature Explorer Kit with your kids, sparking curiosity and fostering a love for the great outdoors right from your backyard

FREE Summer Word Scramble Printable Worksheet in Spanish

In this activity challenge your students and children’s mind as you unravel the letters to form summer-related words in Spanish.

I have 20 fun summer learning activities and we’re making a rock sundial. And look at 11 Fun Summer Activities for Middle Schoolers for more summer fun.

Summer Coloring Pages in Spanish for Kids [Free Printables]

Let’s get children of all ages familiar with summer vocabulary in Spanish with these fun coloring pages which includes different summer clip art from a sandcastle, to summer fruit, to ice cream and flip flops.

Colorful Rainbow Fish Fine Motor Activity for Summer

Learn how to make a Rainbow Fish Peg Board out of simple craft supplies. This is a great way for toddlers and preschoolers to practice color matching and fine motor skills.

Easy DIY Math Fishing Game for Kids

Learn number recognition, counting, fine motor skills and more with this DIY fishing for numbers math game.

Free Carnivorous Plants Lapbook and Fun Homeschool Unit Study Ideas

Besides, carnivorous plants are a fascinating topic for every age.

Learning about Shark Senses Activity and Free Printable

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Set sail on a fun adventure with your kids as you build secret message miniature sailboats, a creative and fun-filled way to learn about the intriguing world of codes!

Sun Roll and Cover Mat

Roll and cover mats are fantastic resources for kids to practice numbers in a playful way! This summer, add excitement with the Sun Roll and Cover Mat, featuring Dice Dots for subitizing skills.

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DIY ice cream in a bag is fun STEM activity for kids that ends with a yummy treat! 

Free Coral Reef Printable Lapbook and Fun Hands-on Unit Study Ideas

I have a free coral reef printable lapbook. Grab more ideas on my Coral Reef, lapbook ideas, and on my best homeschool unit studies pages.

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Mum's Little Explorers

Melbourne for Kids - Activities & Family Travel Ideas

• Indoor Fun / Kids Activities

50 Things To Do with Kids at Home | Fun Indoor Activities for Kids

by mumslittleexplorers · March 1, 2024

A long list of things to do with kids at home including indoor kids activities, creative arts & crafts, science and learning activities, games and family fun!

“Mum, I’m bored”… That’s what many mums are hearing around the world right now! Whether you are stuck at home on a rainy day, or just looking for some new activities for kids, this long list of things to do with the kids at home will give you some fun indoor kids activity ideas.

You will find some indoor activities for kids including games, arts & crafts, and other creative activities. We have also included a small list of things to do at home in the backyard, so if the weather picks up, you can head outside for a bit. Here are some activities for kids that you can also join in to do at home.

50 Things To Do With Kids At Home with Kids

As a former teacher and mother of young kids myself, I have lots of experience with kids activities and want to share my favourites. Here is a list of kids activity ideas and things to do with kids at home when you are stuck inside.

Indoor Kids Activities at Home

Lets kick off with some fun indoor activities for kids to do at home, then we can get to the outdoor kids activities!

1. Read books together

Read books from your home library, see our list of the BEST BOOK SETS FOR KIDS , or check out these FREE ONLINE BOOKS FOR KIDS which have audio. These are great for if you are working from home, cooking, or busy in general, because even if kids can’t read, they can listen to the story online for free. Some local libraries deliver too so make sure to ask if you can’t get there.

For kids who don’t particularly like reading books, print off these would you rather questions which may motivate them.

2. Play board games

Board games are always a fun thing to do at home with kids depending on their ages and there are plenty to choose from.

Check out our list of educational BOARD GAMES FOR KIDS  that start from 3 years and up. Some are great to do at home, and some the kids can play independently. Or check out our FUN FAMILY GAMES post for other ideas.

3. Make a magic potion or do a science experiment

This is a great indoor activity for kids to do at home but also a fun summer kids activity too. Grab a few bowls of ingredients such as water, milk, food die, baking soda, essential oils etc. Give them spoons and let them make up their own little potions.

You can also do this with things such as flour, dry lentils and beans, pasta etc. Great kids activity to do at home. For older ones why not try out some of our SIMPLE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS FOR KIDS .

4. Make some origami

Another creative indoor activity for kids is making origami. This paper folding art has been around for centuries and there are plenty of online resources where you can find instructions for kids to get creative. We have rounded up some fantastic video tutorials perfect for beginners, check out our post EASY ORIGAMI FOR KIDS

5. Cook a meal or bake some cake or cookies

Cooking of baking together is a fun indoor activity for kids no matter what age. A weekly cook up also makes a great tradition for families too. Kids can help stir, use cookie cutters, and of course taste test. If you choose an easy recipe you can get older kids to do most of the work while you supervise. THIS SITE has a great range of kid friendly recipes and things you can do at home with kids.

6. Online Art Lessons

Kids love to draw pictures or colour in and it makes a good fun activity for the kids. Make sure you always have a couple of colouring books at home, as well as some plain printer paper and your set. If you have older kids, try some online drawing lessons from the Art for Kids Hub. Check their channel below, there are tones of different pictures to draw. They are super fun and easy for kids to follow. Find here some other fun Youtube channels for learning.

7. Put together a puzzle

Puzzles are a really fun activity for kids. They give something kids to concentrate on for a period of time. For little ones, set them up with some wooden puzzles. For older ones, challenge them with a 50 piece puzzle and set the timer up. We love the ravensburger puzzles , they have ages on the boxes and there is something for all ages.

8. Dance or Exercise

When you have been cooped up indoors all day, kids need something to wear them out. Check out our post: EXERCISES FOR KIDS AT HOME for some fun ideas to get active.

Dancing around to music is one of the best indoor activity for kids to do at home and get them moving. Pop on your favourite songs or playlist and get them dancing and jumping around for a while.

For little ones, you may also want to sing along to some nursery rhymes, check our list of the most popular NURSERY RHYMES FOR KIDS.

9. Arts and Crafts out of recycled home materials

Everyone has a few cereal boxes and toilet paper rolls around the house. Don’t throw them in the recycle bin, keep them to use for arts and crafts. Make a rocket out of toilet paper roles, make a dinosaur or a robot out of a cereal box. Paint, draw, paste. It is such a great way for kids to get creative and a fun indoor activity for kids to do at home.

10. Build some DUPLO or LEGO

If you have any, LEGO is one of the easiest things to do at home with kids. Even without an instruction kit, kids can get creative on their own. If you don’t have LEGO, any kind of building or construction activity for the kids will get their creative sparks going.

11. Have an indoor picnic

Such a fun thing to do at home with kids. Set up a picnic mat in the lounge room and make a picnic like you would if you were outside at the park. Get some cushions, and decorate, the kids will love it. You can prepare the food if you have little ones, but a great activity for kids to do is preparing the platter themselves, let them get creative.

12. Do some online learning

If you want to get the kids caught up with some academic work, there are some great sites with online learning activities. Check out this list of ONLINE LEARNING WEBSITES for kids.

13. Make an obstacle course

If you have a large living area a fun indoor activity for kids at home is to make an indoor obstacle course using household items. This activity is best for younger children as they are smaller. For an older kids activity at home you may need to head out into the backyard for more space.

14.  Make a race track using masking tape

Have a little one who loves cars? You can easily make a DIY racing track in your living room or hallway using masking tape. There is lots of fun to me made racing cars around, and it is an easy clean up too.

15. Make a home cinema with popcorn and movies

If you can’t go to the movies, a fun activity for kids at home can be making your own cinema. Close the blinds, turn off the lights, make some popcorn and put a film on and there you are. See our movie lists with more to come.

• Best travel movies for kids (animated)
• Best travel movies for families
• Best Christmas movies

16. Do a yoga class on YouTube

If you can’t go outside, another way to have the kids exercise is do some yoga. There are some fantastic Yoga For Kids Videos on You Tube including our favourite, Cosmic Yoga which you can watch free online. Make it a daily routine and help kids become stronger, calmer, and wiser. It is one of the best exercises for kids to do at home . We also have a whole list of mindfulness activities for kids too that you may like.

17. Build a cubby house or fairy house

This is always a favourite for my kids, even as they get older. Your kitchen table, or chairs can easily be turned into a cubby or fairy house and kids will have a ball. Use a sheet or a large blanket to put over the top and get the kids to decorate underneath how they like. Bring in the superheros and create a bat cave or invite the dolls and fairies and have a tea party.

18. Try Michelangelo drawing under a table

This is a really unique indoor activity for kids to do at home. Stick a piece of paper under a chair and have your child lay underneath. Have them try draw a picture upside down and see how it turns out. Makes a great art and history lesson too for older kids.

19. Make friendship bracelets

For this kids activity you just need some different coloured wool. Cut a few pieces to the same size but different colours and tie the end. Put the tied end underneath a heavy book or chair and start designing. You can plait, or just tie knots. See how many different designs you can create.

20. Play Dress Up

If you have costumes, great, get them out. But even if you don’t just let the kids get creative with their own clothes to come up with outfits for different themes. You never know what you can find in your own wardrobe. Make a game of it, dress ups is always a fun activity for kids at home.

21. Build a house with a deck of cards

This is such an easy indoor kids activity for those who need a challenge. All you need is a deck of cards. Put them together in triangles and try to build them up into the form of a house. This is a really good activity for kids to build resilience because it isn’t easy and takes time to perfect. See how many levels you can get.

22. Have a pamper day

Get out the hair masks, face masks brushes and creams and have a pamper day. Just like grown ups would do at the day spa, kids can have fun doing it too. This is a great activity for the whole family.

23. Blow up some balloons and play balloon tennis

This is a great indoor activity for kids to do at home that will get them moving. All you need is a couple of blown up balloons to balloon tennis with your hands or even just see how long you can keep the balloons off the floor. No need to worry about things getting broken as balloons are light, so that’s a win.

24. Write a story or make a Journal

There are so many benefits of journaling and story writing for kids. For older kids they can do this one independently, for little ones you can do it together. Check out our post on Journaling for kids with lots of ideas on how to get started.

For stories, start with choosing your characters, then choose your setting, and then go from there. Or use some of our Writing Prompts for Kids for some ideas. It is a great kids activity to do at home, and the best thing is, you can read it over and over.

25. Indoor treasure hunt

Every kid loves a good treasure hunt and it is an easy indoor activity for kids that you can prepare on the spot. Just write a list of items on a piece of paper, (or draw them for younger kids who can’t yet read), then let them go exploring the house to find them. Try our At Home scavenger hunt printable to do inside with kids.

26. Draw your body on butchers’ paper

My kids and students used to love this one. If you have a long roll of paper a body drawing is a fun activity to do at home with kids. Have your child lay down on the paper while you or a sibling draw around them. Once you have the outline, the kids can fill in the body with all the body parts. This is a great indoor activity for kids that can take a while, so you can finish it over a couple of days.

27. Make paper planes and see how far they can fly

Such a simple easy activity for kids to do at home that will keep them occupied for a while. Make some paper planes and let them fly around the house. See who’s plane can go the furthest.

28. Make a time capsule to open in years to come

Decorate a box that you can fill with items from today such as a newspaper clippings, a magazine, shopping catalogue with prices etc. Then write some predictions on a piece of paper about how life will be in X years’ time. You could do 5 years, 10 years or longer. Put it away in a safe place to open in the future.

29. Draw or paint a self-portrait with a mirror

For this activity you need some paper, a pencil and a mirror. Have the kids look at themselves in the mirror and draw a self-portrait. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it’s great to see how creative kids can get.

30. Thread pasta onto wool or pipe cleaners

Threading pasta is a great activity to do at home to work on kids fine motor skills. You can use some wool or pipe cleaners. Colour or die the pasta first to make it more pretty and you can make a necklace or some other jewellery. You can also use some playdough to go with it, simply place the pipe cleaners into the playdough and thread the pasta this way, great for little ones! Here is a great playdough recipe if you need one.

31. Make music using pots and pans

This is quite a loud activity for kids to do at home so be prepared. They will love it though. Just grab your wooden spoons and spatulas, as well as your pots, pans or containers. You now have a drum kit and kids can make their own beats.

32. Have a living room disco party

Another loud indoor activity for kids that makes noise. Turn the lights off and leave on a small lamp. If you have a disco ball even better. Get the kids to dress up and dance like it’s a party.

33. Make greeting cards

Have a birthday coming up, or a special occasion? Get the kids to make some greeting cards. Get the arts and crafts out, stickers, pom poms, or even just cut up some coloured paper and do some pasting. It is a great way to show kids appreciation and teach them to be kind. Check out our whole list of KINDNESS ACTIVITIES .

34. Make sock puppets

This is a fun activity for kids at home that fun and easy. Grab some old socks, and decorate them to make puppets. If you have some plastic eyeballs you can use those, or some cut up paper will also do. If they are light coloured socks you can use markers to draw.

35. Create a magic show

Find a hat, make a wand out of some recycled cardboard and create a magic show. For younger kids you can do it together. For older ones, have the kids go off and practice so it can be a surprise for the parents.

36. Try on mum or dad’s clothes and have a photo shoot

Kids love to do things they are usually not supposed to do. So, if you give them access to your clothes, shoes, and accessories they will love it. Even better, have a photoshoot afterwards and let them see the photos. Such and easy indoor activity for kids to do at home when you are out of ideas.

37. Make a paper chain

Making paper chains is a super easy kids activity to do at home or wherever. All you need is some coloured paper to cut up into strips and some glue to stick the ends together.

38. Write a poem or song

Writing poems is a great way for kids to learn rhyming words. Try to write a poem or even a song together and then recite it for an audience.

39. Do mummy’s hair and make up

A little patience is needed for this activity. Mum is the client and the kids are the hairdressers and make up artists. Let the kids get creative making mummy beautiful!

40. Organise the playroom/bedroom

If you are out of ideas of things to do at home with the kids, have them help you organise their toys. Make sure that every toy or activity has it’s place. Check if there is any they can give away or donate that they don’t use anymore. This is a great activity to get the kids to help with at home, because if they don’t like it they might not complain so much that they are bored next time!

Things to do at Home with Kids in the Backyard

If you have a backyard and it’s ok to go outside, here are some fun things to do at home with the kids outside. Read more: Fun backyard Games .

41. Make a mud kitchen

If you are ok with the kids getting muddy and dirty, a mud kitchen is a great sensory activity for kids and one of the best things to do at home with kids in the backyard. Get the buckets and spades out and cook up some muddy creations.

42. Do some gardening

Planting some seeds or plants is another fun outdoor activity to do at home. Have the kids be responsible for their pot with their plant. They need to water it each day to watch it grow. We have a whole list of fun GARDENING ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS . Also check out these EASY TO GROW VEGETABLES FOR KIDS.

43. Scavenger hunt

Similar to the indoor activity we mentioned, an outdoor scavenger hunt is a fun activity for kids to do at home. Write or draw a list of things for kids to find, and send them outside to find them. If you have a printer check out our free themed SCAVENGER HUNT LISTS that you can print out.

44. Party games

Have a party game day where kids can have competitions such as an egg and spoon race or a three legged race. This is a fun idea not only for kids, but for the whole family too. Another good one is putting the ball between their legs and running around trying not to drop it. So many fun ideas. Check out our whole list of PARTY GAMES FOR KIDS.

45. Search for bugs and insects

Head out to the backyard and search for bugs. Of course, be careful of spiders, but look for lady bugs, crickets, snails, and other insects. Have the kids make a list of what they find, or even draw what they see.

46. Draw with chalk

Drawing with chalk is such a great activity for kids at home because it goes away with water. Let the kids draw on the cement outside, or even on the fence. When it’s all done just wash it off with the hose.

47. Paint the fence with water

Such an easy activity for kids that will keep them entertained for ages. Fill a bucket with water and give them a paint brush. Let them “paint” the fence with water! Kids get to get “messy” with no real mess! It makes a great kids activity to do in warmer weather, make sure to see our other SUMMER ACTIVITIES .

48. Create some shadow drawings

If it is a sunny day get outside with a piece of paper and some animals from the toy box. Put the animals at the top of the paper and make sure the kids are facing in a position where the shadow of the animal lands on the paper. Kids can then draw the animals by tracing around.

49. Outdoor cinema

If you can bring the TV outside, or even the IPAD, an outdoor cinema is always fun, and something different. When it gets dark, bring out the big pillows, cushions and blankets, prepare some snacks and popcorn, and the kids can watch their favourite films outside.

50. Have a camp out

If you have a tent, a fun thing to do at home is camp outside in the backyard with the kids one night just like you would in the bush. Bring out the sleeping bags, pillows and a nightlight. Tell stories and sleep until the morning.

Indoor Kids Activities to do at Home

We hope this list of things to do at home with kids is enough to keep you occupied day after day, week after week. Please do let us know of any other indoor activities to do with kids and we can add them to the list!

Looking for more activities to do with the kids? Check out these posts:

• Fun family games
• Summer kids activities
• Winter kids activities

See our category KIDS ACTIVITIES or follow Mum’s Little Explorers on FACEBOOK.

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EXPLORE WITH KIDS

At Mum’s Little Explorers, you can find family friendly events and activities for kids in and around Melbourne, as well as family travel ideas and inspiration.

We also feature lots of fun activities for kids that you can do at home and reviews of products and travel gear.

Contact us: [email protected]

87 Energy-Busting Indoor Games & Activities For Kids (Because Cabin Fever Is No Joke)

• Pinterest 303.2K
• Facebook 6.9K

Wondering what to do if you’re stuck inside with your kids all day? Our huge list of active indoor activities will keep your kids – from toddlers to teens – busy and burning energy!

It doesn’t matter where you’re located, or what the weather is like outside your window, there are always times when you have to be inside. And as Moms, I think we all understand that Kids + Energy + Inside is an equation that can equal chaos and inevitable disaster.

That’s why we teamed up with one of our favorite brands of all time,  Tea Collection , to test out their all-new active wear line, and bring you an  epic list of active indoor games and activities that will get your kids up and moving , even on the gloomiest of days. 

These activities will not only fight boredom (which equals less whining, woohoo!) but will also challenge their minds and muscles – strengthening their bodies and releasing all that pent-up energy – ultimately leaving you with stronger kids (albeit a little sweaty), that won’t fight you when it comes to hitting the hay. A worthy outcome indeed.

Please note: this post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see our  d isclosure  policy.

Pin so you have this life-saving list at hand when snow or rain strikes:

A simple roll of low-tack Painter’s tape ( like this one for delicate surfaces ) will be your new best friend once you try these genius ideas that get kids exerting their energy in all sorts of creative ways.

(editor’s note: just bringing out the roll of tape got Ooos and Ahhs from my kids – these activities were extremely well received and have now been added to my Boredom Buster bag of tricks!)

Tape Shape Game:  Use  this tape  to put a variety of shapes, letters and/or numbers on your floor. Have your child stand on their favorite one then give them instructions to follow that will lead them to their next destination (for example: “bear crawl to the square”, “hop like a Frog to the T”, “Run to the rectangle”). We love that this game  from Toddler Approved  keeps your child moving, but also helps them learn their shapes, letters and numbers!

Tape Lines:  Make 5-10 separate lines of tape, each about a foot apart, on your floor or carpet. Label the first one the “start” line and then give your kids simple instructions:

• Long Jump:  See how many lines they can jump over. Have them try and beat their best score each time. Experiment with arm swinging vs. arms behind their backs.
• Run ‘n’ Jump:  Now let them take a running start and see if they can jump even further!
• Long Jump Backwards:  Increase the difficulty by performing the tasks jumping backwards.
• Hop:  How far can they jump on one leg?
• Reach ‘n’ Stretch:  How far can their leg reach with one foot on the “start” line?

Create a Race-Car Track:  Use your  painter’s tape  (or opt for  this super cool race-track tape ) to make a huge road system for your kids’ matchbox cars. Think outside the box and have the track scale furniture and other obstacles (just make sure it’s something you don’t mind toy vehicles being “driven” over). The key to making it active is to make it large-scale, so they are engaging their core muscles while crawling all over. (Pic via  PopSugar  and Pinterest – source unknown)

You can even make it super-sized for ride-on vehicles like the pics here from  Hands On As We Grow . 

RELATED: For our top tested picks for indoor ride-on toys see  The Best Indoor Gross Motor Toys For Active Kids (To Get That Energy Out!)

Hopscotch:  Make a simple hopscotch “board” and your kids will think it’s just the coolest thing that it’s  inside ! (pic via  Brit+co )  Number Squares :  Make a large square with your tape and then divide it into 9 or more small squares, marking random numbers in each one. Now ask your child to perform a specific movement to get to the next number like “jump to 10”, “zoom to 3”, “slither to 67”. ( via DreamGYM )

BALLOON GAMES

Has your child ever received a balloon at a birthday party and been totally enamored by it? Take that fascination to the next level by adding in a few “rules” and they’ll be happily moving around developing their gross motor skills while burning off some of that rambunctious energy.

Try some of our favorite balloon games and always keep a few handy to pull out when the going gets tough.

**Just a reminder that pieces of burst balloons can be a serious choking hazard, so if you have younger kids, make sure they are supervised during these activities at all times** Don’t Let The Balloon Touch The Ground:  This is the classic game that kids fall for every time. The rules are simple – hit the balloon up in the air but don’t let it touch the ground. To make it more challenging for older kids, have them juggle more than 1 balloon, or tie one hand behind their back. Time them to see how long they can do it for, or if you have multiple kids, have them count how many times they can hit it back and forth…then see if they can beat their time or score! This game is great for improving arm strength and hand-eye coordination.

Try adding stuffed animals to the mix for extra fun. Have your child pick their favorite stuffy and hold it in their hand so it is essentially the one hitting the balloon. You’d be surprised how this one simple variation can boost their engagement even further!

Penguin Waddle:  Place a balloon between your child’s knees and have them waddle across the room without dropping it. Make it more challenging for older kids by having them go around a few obstacles. If they drop it, they have to go back to the start.

For multiple kids, have them play as a team with the balloon placed between their hips. Once they get the hang of it, get out your timer to see how fast they can do it.

Balloon Taps:  Hang a balloon by a string from your doorway so it is a few inches higher than your child’s arm reach. Then challenge them to try and tap it with their hand. Count how many they can do in a row without missing (this gets tiring very quickly!). Up the ante by seeing if they can jump and touch the balloon with the top of their head!

Balloon Blow:  Set up a “course” and see if your child can blow a balloon all the way to the finish line. They’ll have to do lots of army crawls working their upper body and core strength along the way.

Backhand Balloon Balance:  Challenge your kids to balance a balloon on the back of their hand, and see how long they can do it before it falls to the ground. You’d be surprised how much they will move around with this one! Balloon Paddle Ball : Use a fly swatter, tennis/badminton racket or  make your own paddle  using a paper plate and over-sized popsicle stick (or  use a paint stir stick  or  plastic spoon ), then use it to play the games above.

These paddles are also fun for balancing your balloon. Have your kids try to keep their balloon on the paddle as they navigate through obstacles or run around the house. Not as easy as it sounds! Balloon  Foot Balance :  For a real challenge, have your kids lie on the ground with their legs up in the air and try and balance the balloon on their feet. It’s not an easy task and requires a lot of concentration. It’s also a great core workout!

Balloon Volleyball : Make a “net” by tying a piece of string between 2 chairs and then have your child hit the balloon back and forth by running from one side to the other, trying to keep it off the floor. If you have 2 or more kids, have them hit it over the net as many times as they can without it falling. Balloon Hockey:  Use a small kiddy hockey stick or make your own out of cardboard ( see full tutorial  on Creative Connections For Kids) to navigate a balloon into a net (use a laundry basket or box on its side if you don’t have any smaller ones to bring indoors).

FUN/SILLY MOVING GAMES

Just a warning – you’re going to have a hard time deciding which of these fun (and often giggle-fit-inducing) games to play first. They’re so entertaining that you’ll be wanting to join in too!

Sticky Spider Web:  Use painter’s tape to make a web-like design on a doorway opening (idea via  Hands On As We Grow ). Give your kids some newspaper to scrunch up and throw up at the web. Or get creative and use other light-weight objects like balloons. Have them count how many objects stick versus how many don’t for extra learning points.

Sticky Note Wall Bop:  Attach 26 sticky notes to the back of a door and write a different letter on each one (in random order). Make a “start” line a few feet away from the door (more if you have older kids), and have your child stand behind it with a soft ball, bean bag, stuffed animal or pair of rolled up socks. Now instruct them to throw their object to try and hit the “A” or the “T”. Players with more advanced aim and spelling skills can try and hit all the letters in specific words (to make it even tougher, if they miss one of the letters, have them start all over again!).

Alternatively, write different point values on each sticky and give your child 10 throws. For each target they hit, mark down the number of points. At the end of the round, tally up to crown a winner (or if playing solo, have them try and beat their previous score).  (editor’s note: make sure your kids are retrieving their throwing object themselves…running and bending down to pick it up over and over again is all part of the exercise!)

Floor Bop:  Take Wall Bop to the floor. Instead of aiming up high, your kids will now have to toss an object to land on pieces of paper on the floor. The same rules as above can apply.

Color Toss:  Similar to Floor Bop, but with this game you’ll tape colored pieces of construction paper to the floor. Create your own point system where you get 1 point if you land a  bean bag  on any paper, but 5 points if you land on a paper that matches the bean bag color.

You can also use these colored “mats” to instruct your child to do fun tasks such as “bounce like a bunny to green”, “tiptoe to yellow” and “high knees to red”.

Ping Pong Ball Catch:  Get out those plastic red Solo cups and a few ping pong balls (or any small object that will fit in the cup) and have your kids toss the ball to a partner and try and catch it in the cup. Start out close together and then keep taking a step backwards to increase the challenge. For a single-player, they can simply throw the ball in the air and try and catch it. Alligator Alley:  One of our favorite go-to inside games of all time. Simply scatter some “islands” or “boats” across the floor (use pillows, stuffed animals, books, etc) and then have your kids jump from one to the next without falling into the “water” and risk being eaten by a hungry alligator. Bonus points if Mom plays said hungry alligator and chomps after them when they stumble!

Crab Walk:  Teach your child how to do the crab walk, then see how fast they can scurry across the room. Have races with siblings (or yourself!) and then increase the level of difficulty by having them balance a stuffed animal on their stomach. If it falls, they have to scramble back to the beginning and start again!

Cotton-Ball Crawl:  This Cotton-Ball Crawl game ( via Parenting ) is tons of fun and involves moving a pile of cotton balls from one room to another using a spoon. The feather-weight cotton balls make it easy to fly off if they don’t balance it just right!

ABC Exercise Cards:  Download these  fun printable cards  from Home School Share which outline an active task for each letter of the alphabet. Have your child do all the ones that make up their name, or simply pick at random. In addition to getting in some healthy physical movement, they’ll also be learning their letters!

Indoor Croquet:  Make your own indoor croquet course using toilet paper rolls or pieces of construction paper (via  Toddler Approved ). Amp up the activity by writing active tasks on each “tunnel” that need to be completed once your ball makes it through like “do 15 jumping jacks as fast as you can” or “go run up and down the stairs 2 times”. 

Movement Chain:  You need at least 2 players for this interactive game where the first person starts by performing a certain movement – this could be something simple like jumping 2 times, or more complex like holding a plank for 30 seconds. The next person has to perform the first movement, and then add on another, forming a chain. The following person does the previous 2 movements, plus adds their own. You continue in this fashion until the chain sequence is broken (usually forgotten!) and then that person is out. The last one standing is the winner.

Potato Drop:  The Potato Drop ( via Parenting ) is another one of our favorites because kids think it is good ol’ silly fun (we do too). Have all participants place a potato between their knees and race to a finish line where they have to drop it into a designated bowl or bucket. If the potato is dropped, or if hands touch it, they have to go back to the start and try again.  (editor’s note: this is actually a great party game for big groups of kids – split them up into 2 teams and relay race to see which one can get all their potatoes into the bucket first!)

Mirror, Mirror:  Stand face to face with your child, about a foot apart, and have them attempt to copy all your movements. Reach up and stretch to the sky. Do 10 jumping jacks. Run in place. Act like a monkey. Make it fun and you’ll both be working up a sweat in no time. Then switch roles and copy your child – they won’t be able to hold back the laughter (and neither will you!).

Airplane Landing:  Make paper airplanes and throw them. The catch? You have to collect it and bring it back to the start line without walking – this could be running, hopping, skipping, twirling, crawling…let them get creative!

Crib Mattress Slide:  This is another one of our go-to activities when we’re stuck inside – it’s super simple but kids think it is a riot! Take a crib mattress and prop it up on a bed or soft chair so it creates a slide to the ground. Now your kids can climb on up and slide down over and over again (just make sure you keep a hand on it at the top so it doesn’t slip down).

Pillow Case Race:  On hardwood or tile floors, sit on a pillow case (or a t-shirt) and use your arms and legs to scoot around a “race” course.

Target Practice:  Set up some targets (empty water bottles or paper towel rolls work great) and have your kids try and knock them down with Nerf guns or throwing soft objects. The exercise comes in when they have to keep going back and forth between retrieving their objects and the start line.

Wiggle Jar:  Print out these inventive  activity cards  from Home School Share and place them in a jar for whenever your child needs to let the “wiggles” out. These cards are packed with great movements and silly actions like “pretend you’re in a band for 2 minutes: play the instrument of your choice” and “push the wall (hold it up) for 30 seconds”. Discard the few cards that have outdoor activities for when you’re truly stuck inside!

Although we may hunt for things all the time (hello keys, wallet, phone!), your kids don’t always get the same chance at discovery. So set them up with a hunt all their own with these incredibly creative ideas:

Lego Color Hunt:  You have to try this one, it is a kid-favorite and super easy to execute. Select 4 pieces of colored construction paper and then collect 10 Lego pieces that match each one (ie. 10 yellow Lego pieces for a yellow piece of paper). Now hide all of the Lego pieces in one room/area of your house and lay out the colored paper on a table or the floor nearby. Start the clock and have your kid(s) start hunting.

Once they’ve found a Lego, they need to return it to the piece of paper that matches in color. See how long it takes them to find them all (tell them there’s 10 of each color so they can count to see if they’re missing any themselves), and then re-hide so they can try and get a lower time.  (editor’s note: for my 2 older kids I hid 5 Duplo Legos and 5 regular Legos of each color and then assigned them a size – that way they each had the opportunity to find the same amount…and big brother couldn’t sweep them all up leaving little sis with nothing!)

Once they’ve had enough of the game, challenge them to have a little quiet time and make a cool rainbow structure out of the Legos (while Mom drinks a cup of coffee…score!)

Puzzle Piece Hunt:  This is a genius idea courtesy of  No Time For Flash Cards . Hide all the pieces of a wooden board puzzle and have your child search for them – returning each piece to the board as they go. This game gets them moving, and their brain working at the same time, and kids love having a goal to complete. They’ll beg you to hide them again! 

Paint Chip Color Hunt:  Pick up some brightly colored paint chips from your local hardware store and ask your kids to find items that match each color as closely as possible (again, keep a timer going so they quicken their pace). Don’t have Paint Chips? Use colored construction paper instead like  Simple Play Ideas !  ABC Hunt:  Have your kids go around the house with a basket, collecting items that start with each letter of the alphabet (A for apple, B for Barbie, C for Crayola, etc) – give them a checklist to mark off each one as they go. Time them so they run! Scavenger Hunt:  Use this  Scavenger Hunt Printable  from Living and Life Designed to send your kids on a fun hunt around the house collecting various items that you’ve listed. Make it fun by including specific things like “your favorite bath toy” or “a pink sock” to more general categories like “something that begins with the letter T”. And yes, set that timer!

Flash Light Scavenger Hunt:  If you have a room that can get sufficiently dark by turning off the lights and closing the blinds, send your kids on a Flash Light Scavenger Hunt where they have to find certain hidden items in the dark using a flashlight. Kids go crazy for this one! (via  Hands On As We Grow )

MAZE + OBSTACLE COURSE

These incredible ideas for making your own DIY maze or obstacle course will test your child’s strategic skills while getting their heart pumping.

Mission Impossible Obstacle Maze:  Using either  Crepe Paper   or  Flag Tape  (held in place with  Painter’s Tape ), create an intricate maze in a hallway for your kids to navigate their bodies through. Put the tape up high and down low, forcing them to step over and crawl under at various points. The only problem with this one is that once you make it, your kids will constantly be begging you to make another! (Idea via  Brassy Apple ) Life-size Book Maze:  This creative idea from  Preschool Powol Packets  uses books (but other household items: clothing, brooms, and sports equipment like bats and sticks would all work well) to create a large scale maze that will challenge your kids to find their way out. Once they have the hang of it, have them crawl, hop, or walk backwards through it! This one is great for preschoolers to work on their spatial awareness and problem solving skills – in addition to getting them up and moving.

Obstacle Course:  This tried-and-true idea is always a huge hit with kids, and can be made different every time so it never gets old. Make sure to create an engaging course that includes a variety of motions (jumping, crawling, balancing, etc.) and uses a large area. Have your kids help make the course (which is half the fun!) using some of these creative ideas:

• Hula hoops to jump through
• Line of tape to balance on
• Couch cushions to hop between
• Table to crawl under
• Blanket over 2 chairs to crab walk through
• Tupperware containers to hurdle over
• Stuffed animals to roll over
• Plastic cups to run around

We love that obstacle courses are great for kids of all ages to participate in – the younger tots enjoy just being able to complete all the obstacles, while older kids can race against each other or the clock. You could even have them attempt it balancing a bean bag or stuffed animal on their head, or with 1 hand behind their back.

Take 10 minutes to set-up a super engaging course, and you’ll benefit from happy, worn-out kids.

USE YOUR GARAGE

Sometimes the most obvious ideas don’t dawn on you until it’s too late. If you have a garage, why not move out your car and let your kids go wild in the open (but covered) space. Depending on its size, they could use their scooters, bikes and other outdoor ride-on toys, or play a game of tag, catch, soccer or street hockey. The best part about this is that your kids really feel like they’re getting outdoor play time, and are getting some fresh (well, fresh- er ) air at the same time.

BRING OUTDOOR TOYS INSIDE

If using your garage isn’t a viable option (where are all the hoarders at?!), then consider bringing some of your child’s outdoor toys  inside . These can be smaller items like jump ropes and soft balls, or larger items like scooters, ride-ons and our all-time  favorite fold-up slide   (editor’s note:  this slide   has been in and out of my house for years – it fits in our playroom in the winter and is used with a stuffed animal landing pit and in obstacle courses. It then goes outside in the summer as a fun slide into our blow-up pool!)

SPORTS GAMES

Another way to bring the outdoors in, is to adapt your child’s favorite outdoor sports games to be indoor friendly. Try out these variations for plenty of sweaty fun:

Basketball:  If you have a  Little Tikes basketball hoop  or an  over-the-door  one, then you’re all set to play with a soft foam ball. But no worries if you don’t, just grab some laundry baskets or beach buckets and place them on the floor, stairs or hang from a door handle or hook. Make-shift your own balls with a wad of newspaper, bean bags, soft toys or rolled-up socks.

Play a game of HORSE or see who can make the farthest shot. Set-up lines of tape to see how many shots they can make from each one. Or set a timer for 1 minute and challenge them to make as many baskets as they can (running to retrieve the ball after each missed shot!).

Figure Skating:  Clear an area on your floor (you can even “rope” off an actual “rink” if you’d like), grab you hat and mittens, and pretend you’re gliding across the ice. There’s several fun ways to make it feel as real as possible:

• Use dryer sheets – they provide just the right amount of slide and won’t scratch your floors!
• Paper Plate Skating  from Hands On As We Grow: Simply grab 2 paper plates, step on them with bare feet (they’ll “stick” better) and then slide away. 
• Put a pair of wool-like mittens on your feet (kids think this is pretty silly which adds to the fun)
• Construct wax paper booties using string or tape
• Save old tissue boxes and kids can simply place their feet through the opening!

Lacrosse:  Lacosse is a tough sport to safely practice inside, unless you have  this genius training device . The  CradleBaby  is a regulation Lacrosse ball with a tether strap that attaches to the head of a Lacrosse stick. So your child can practice their stick skills all over the house without creating any damage!

Bowling:  Set up your bowling “lane” with some painter’s tape and use plastic bottles or cups for pins. Use any type of ball to bowl, attempting to knock down as many pins as possible. Keep track of the score, or simply aim to knock them all down in one turn. Create a plastic cup pyramid to up the fun-factor even more. Soccer:  Bring outdoor nets inside, or set up a goal using 2 cones (or plastic cups), a chair (score by getting it through the legs) or a simple piece of tape. Use any soft ball, or a super fun gliding ball  like this one !

Mini Golf:  If you already have  mini-golf putters , all you’ll need are a few “holes” to start your round of golf. Tape some plastic cups lying on their side to the ground, or create tunnels with pieces of construction paper. If you don’t have putters, use long rolls of wrapping paper, hockey sticks, or  pool noodles !   

Hockey:  Create your own version of indoor hockey using balloons and pool noodles for young kids, or a knee hockey set  like this one  featured in our  Gift Guide: The Best Indoor Gross Motor Toys For Active Kids

Dress the Part If you’re stuck indoors for the long haul, pick several of the activities from our list and announce to your kids that you have some fun indoor activities planned. Instruct them to put on their favorite active wear and meet back at a designated spot in a few minutes. Just the act of getting into “special clothing” will snap them out of boredom and get them excited about what’s to come!

A big thank-you to our incredible partner,  Tea Collection , for providing us with samples of their new Active collection to test. We’ve been avid fans of Tea’s globally inspired clothing for years, and their latest endeavor did not disappoint. Our kid-testers stayed cool in their colorful tanks, shorts and leggings thanks to the moisture wicking, made-to-move fabrics.

We love that you can mix and match pieces from Tea Active with their everyday collection, and bonus: they’re made with UPF 40 protection, so they’ll keep your kids comfy and protected both indoors  and  out.

Check out Tea Active and all their latest arrivals  here .

CLASSIC GAMES + ACTIVITIES

Some games are classics for a reason: they’re just simple good ol’ fun. These ones are our favorites, updated for modern indoor play:

Egg ‘n’ Spoon Race:  Grab a spoon and any small round object that will fit on top (or if you’re brave and have easy-to-clean floors, go ahead and use a real egg!). Create a course for your child to navigate through and see if they can do it without dropping it off the spoon. Once they’ve got the hang of it, go for speed!

“Potato Sack” Race:  Update this classic by using pillow cases! Have your kids step in and hold it up around their waist, then hop to the finish. So simple, but they will be laughing like crazy and getting crazy tired all at once.

3-Legged Race:  Tie your kids’ outside ankles together with something soft and stretchy like a long ski sock, PJ pants or bandage wrap. Now they’ll have to work as a team to coordinate their movements to get from point A to point B. This is one of our favorites because it not only builds gross motor coordination, but is great for sibling bonding too!

Wheelbarrow Puzzle Walk:  Take your average Wheelbarrow race to the next level by having your child complete a puzzle in this brilliant idea from  Stir The Wonder . Set-up a wooden puzzle board and scatter the pieces around a room. Grab your child’s ankles (or hips to make it a bit easier for little ones) and hold them up so they can walk on their hands to collect them. They have to bring each piece back 1-by-1 and fit it into the board until the puzzle is complete.  (editor’s note: this is one of my kids’ favorites and is great for upper body strengthening!) Hula Hoop:  If you have a  Hula Hoop , now is the perfect time to dust it off and bring it back to life. Make it fresh by turning it into a game like who can do the most circles around their waist, arm or ankle. Try rolling it back and forth between 2 people, or see if your child can put some backspin on it and make it return to themselves. For little ones, put it on the floor and practice jumping in/out, side-to-side or have them pick it up and use it as a steering wheel to drive an imaginary car all around the house!

Jumping Limbo:  Do the Limbo in reverse: instead of going under, have your kids jump  over ! Using something flexible like a stretchy exercise band, crepe paper or jump rope, have 2 people hold it (or attach it to something on one side) and start it on the ground. Have your kids run in a circle and then jump over it. After a few successful jumps, raise it an inch or two. Keep raising it until they can’t jump any higher!

Red-Light, Green-Light (Purple Light?!)  Do your kids go nutty for this game every single time like ours? We like to add in a few different colored lights as the game goes on to keep it interesting:

• Yellow Light: Slow crawl on the ground
• Green Light: Jump like a frog
• Blue Light: Try and touch the sky
• Purple Light: Do a silly dance

Hide-and-Seek:  Make it more active by having them hide on different levels of your house every time, that way they’re going up and down stairs every few minutes. Or, have the player that is found first perform a “penalty” that can include classic exercises like jumping jacks, burpees or sit-ups!

Simon Says : Get your child on board to play a game of Simon Says and they’ll do whatever active motions you dream up. But make sure you still make them a little silly – think animal movements, dramatic actions and anything on one foot.

Twister : Get in a good stretch by playing a  game of twister . Don’t have the game? Make your own by taping construction paper circles on the floor. 

Bubbles ! We’ve never met a child that doesn’t get excited about bubbles. Blow some with a wand and challenge your kids to pop them all before they touch the ground, prompting lots of jumping and diving. Better yet,  create your own Bubble Machine  with a fan! (via Kids Activities Blog)

Parachute:  Grab a bed sheet and get your whole family involved – everyone taking a side and rapidly moving your arms up and down. Put some small balls or balloons on top and try and fling them off. Kids love this one!

ACTIVITY DICE

We love these fun, interactive games where your assign a get-up-and-move task to each side of a cube. Kids simply roll the cube to see what activity they need to perform, and for how long. You can create different themes like animal movements (think “run like a Cheetah”, or “Hop like a Frog”) or go for classic exercises (jumping jacks, sit-ups or planks anyone?) and scale them appropriately for your child’s age and ability.

Kids really love these simple yet silly games, and you can easily change them up with new tasks to keep it fresh. A few of our favorite variations include:

(1)   Lego Super Hero Action Dice:  We love this  free printable  from Life Over C’s and so will any Super Hero loving kids. Simply print and roll and they’ll be soaring like superman, zooming like the Batmobile and Running like Flash!

(2)   Get the Kids Moving Game:  Just print, cut and glue these  colorful printable die  (via Paperelli for iheartnaptime) and your kids will be performing silly (but strengthening) tasks like “Bunny Hops for 15 seconds” or “One-Leg Flamingo Balance for 45 seconds” in no time.

(3)    Animal Action Dice:  This adorable  printable dice  from Playdoh to Plato features creative animal movements like “Wander like a moose” and “Scurry like a squirrel”. 

(4)   Movement Dice:  Alternatively, use these  printable movement dice  from Pink Oatmeal which include classic movements and animals.

(5)   Animal Movement Activity Dice:  Simply print and stick these engaging  animal movements  from Silhouette Blog onto a wooden block. This one is perfect for pre-schoolers who won’t be able to hold back the giggles whenever they roll “Waddle like a penguin”.

(6)   Move Like An Insect Gross Motor Dice:  This printable dice from Life Over C’s  features bugs  and their movements. Your kids will be having a blast crawling like caterpillars and flapping like butterflies while burning off tons of energy! 

(7)   Moving My Body Gross Motor Dice:   Another great printable  from Life Over C’s features 2 dice – 1 with body parts and 1 with motions. Roll them both and put them together to do active motions like “wiggle your head” and “bend your elbow”. 

(8)   Snowy Winter Gross Motor Dice : For  this game  from 3 Dinosaurs there are two dice: 1 for winter-themed movements (think snow angel, skiing and shoveling) and 1 for speed (fast, slow and normal). A great active boredom buster for your next snow day! 

(9)   Animal Dice Game:  Another fun option for animal movements are these  free printable dice  from Twitchetts which combine instructions on 1 die like “act like…” and “run like…” with different animals on another die. 

(10)   Gross Motor Action Dice:  This  easy printable  from I Can Teach My Child will have your child hop, skip and jumping their energy away. 

BONUS IDEAS!

These may not be printable, but they’re super easy to execute and are still extremely engaging.

Assign-a-Dice:  On a piece of paper assign each number from 1-6 a movement or action. Have your child roll a dice and perform the task assigned to the corresponding number. Make it active yet silly for best results. A few fun ones to try:

• Do 10 burpees…blindfolded!
• Crab Crawl backwards around the edge of the room
• Fly like a bird to the bathroom and back
• Army crawl for 20 seconds

For extra fun, use 2 dice and assign movements to one die (running, jumping, etc), and animals to the other. Roll them both and your kids will be “slithering like a monkey”, “hopping like a fish” or “skipping like an elephant” amidst fits of laugher.

Uno Movement Game:  OK, so this  Uno Movement game  from Still Playing School isn’t technically an activity dice game, but it works in a very similar manner. Grab a deck of  Uno Cards  and assign actions to each number. Flip a card over and  everyone  gets up and completes the task.

GET DRAMATIC

This won’t be a problem for most kids, as drama is often a skill that is practiced daily (whether they realize it or not!). Have your kids channel that drama in these exciting activities that will also reduce their restless energy.

Movement Charades:  Pretend to be your favorite animal, superhero or sports player by imitating their signature moves (no sounds allowed!). The rest of the players try and guess who they are – the first one to do so correctly, gets a point. If your kids have trouble thinking on the spot, write down some suggestions and place them in a hat to draw from when it’s their turn

Create a Show:  Invite your kids to create their very own play (you’ll provide the audience!). The only catch is that they have to create it around an active prompt you give them – this could be a sport, activity (karate, dance, gymnastics) or our personal favorite, a Circus Show full of juggling (attempts at least) and jumping through hoops. Once they’re ready to perform, video tape it so it feels like a real production (plus kids love to watch themselves on tape so you’ll get a moment of rest while the replay airs).

Put on a Fashion Show:  Kids love to dress-up, and this idea brings that love to the next level. Create a long runway out of tape or  kraft paper  and invite your fashionistas to perform their best walk while you pump the music. You can play the judge awarding points for style, creativity and their overall strut.

Choreograph a Routine:  If your child is into dance, theatre or just loves to be the star of the show, challenge them to choreograph a one minute solo routine that they’ll have to perform in front of their loyal fans (ahem, you). Not only does this get kids thinking creatively and working independently (aka Mom gets a break), it also gets their blood flowing as they practice over and over again until it’s just right.

IMAGINATIVE PLAY

Exercise your child’s body  and  mind with these active imaginative games .

Snowball Fight:  Create an indoor snow fight by creating your own snowballs with scrunched up pieces of newspaper, or buy a fun indoor snowball fight kit  like this one . Make your own fort to take cover in between throws. This is a kid-favorite and they burn a ton of energy ducking and darting out of the way of incoming blizzards.

We’re Going On A Bear Hunt:  Hide a bear (or other stuffed animal) somewhere in your house and have your child find it (use “hot” or “cold” for younger kids who may need a bit of direction). Bonus points if you read  the book  first. 

Make Elephant Feet:  Stomp around the house with these inventive  DIY Elephant Feet  from Martha Stewart. Click  here  for the full tutorial. 

MUSICAL + DANCE

Time to pull out your best ‘90s dance moves and crank up the music. With these games your kids will forget all about the rain or snow outside, and instead they’ll dance up a storm of their very own.

Dance Party!  Turn on the high-energy music and have a dance off! Make sure you have a large open space (clear of toys to trip on) and twirl, twist and shimmy your way around the room. Add in musical instruments or turn off the lights and break out some glow-sticks to prolong the party.

Freeze Dance:  Add-in a game to your dance party where one person stops the music and everyone else must instantly freeze. If you catch someone moving, they’re out. The last one standing (or dancing in this case), wins.

Musical Letters:  Make pieces of paper with big letters on them and spread them around the room. Play some music while they dance and then stop it and call out one of the letters. They have to immediately find the letter and sit down on it. If they pick the wrong one, have them do 15 jumping jacks (or whatever age appropriate movement you decide). Scale this activity to fit the level of your child – use colors, numbers or sight words to make it easier or harder. (Idea via  Let Kids Be Kids )

EXERCISE VIDEOS!

Let’s face it, most kids would love to sit in front of their iPad on a rainy day for hours on end, but an explosion of pent-up energy at bedtime is not exactly our idea of fun. Instead, turn their “device” time into exercising fun by turning on some kid-friendly YouTube Exercise Videos.

Some of  our favorite YouTube channels and videos  for getting your kids up and moving include:

GoNoodle:   This channel  provides the greatest variety of get-you-moving videos for kids. Do a little exploring and you’re bound to find the perfect one for your kids  (editor’s note: a current favorite in our household is  this one  from Trolls)

Whip/Nae Nae Elementary Cardio Workout :  This genius cardio version  of the popular Whip/Nae Nae moves performed by elementary school kids incorporates jumping jacks, lunges and push-ups in a workout that’s so fun, kids won’t even realize they’re working out.

Koo Koo Kanga Roo:  If you can get past the kitchy mustache and fanny pack on this dynamic duo, you kids will be totally intrigued by  Koo Koo Kanga Roo’s dance-a-long songs , including our favorite  Dinosaur Stomp . 

Learning Station:   This channel  boasts “healthy music for a child’s heart, body and mind”, offering educational videos with lots of active participation geared towards toddlers, preschoolers and elementary aged kids. Some of our top selections: “ Move and Freeze ” and “ Shake Your Sillies Out “. 

Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel:  Jack Hartmann  is another great channel with lots of videos to explore, and features educational themes (learn counting, numbers and more!) with dance and movement. Check out the short  Brain Breaks  and  Physical Education songs , plus our favorites “ Animals in Action ” and “ Top Dog ”. 

Move To Learn Channel : Pair  educational songs  with easy-to-follow exercise moves, and you’ve got engaged kids burning tons of energy. We love “ King Shapes ” for youngers kids and “ Football Fractions ” for slightly older kids (especially those sports-obsessed!). 

Saskia’s Dansschool:  This incredible dance school in The Netherlands films their talented dancers performing high-energy dances to popular songs. Head to their “ Kids Dances ” section for choreographed routines danced by a group of skilled kids to hits from the likes of  Justin Bieber ,  Justin Timberlake  and  Meghan Trainer . These videos have millions of likes on YoutTube and your kids will love playing them over and over again to pick up all the moves (plus many of them even have their own choreography step-by-step tutorial videos!).

GROOV3Dance Channel:  Professional dancer/choreographer Benjamin Allen leads this series of “how to dance” videos, and we think their  mini workouts  that last 3-5 minutes are perfect for kids – they feature hit songs and are all high-energy and super engaging. These are perfect for grade schoolers and tweens who want to learn some killer dance moves!

Make sure you check out the “ Forget You ” CeeLo choregraphed dance which features child dancers. 

Just Dance Kids:  Simply search for “ Just Dance Kids ” on YouTube and it will pull up a whole selection of video routines pulled from the Wii U games. They feature great music that will make you want to jump in there and try to perform all the moves alongside your kids!

Cosmic Kids Yoga:  This channel includes a  huge collection of videos  that focus on yoga and mindfulness wrapped in fun, interactive adventures – building kids’ strength, balance and confidence.

Steve Songs “Let’s Move”:  You can’t go wrong with anything from Steve Songs, and  this song  (as cheesy as it may be) prompts kids to “get up, get up” and certainly has the right message with its “let’s move” chorus. It’s super catchy (just try and get it out of your head!) and kids think it’s silly fun.

Fit Factor Kids Exercise:  Kids seem to love this  fun 5-minute exercise routine  led by a teenage girl who demonstrates a variety of different animal movements. Try it with yours!

Vacuum, Sweep or Swiffer:  Open up your cleaning closet and have your child pick their favorite tool. The  Swiffer  always seems to be a highly coveted item, and having them work their push/pull muscles while cleaning the house is a winning combination for all.

PLAY WITH ACTIVE TOYS

Head over to our  Gift Guide: The Best Indoor Gross Motor Toys For Active Kids (To Get That Energy Out!)  for our kid-tested recommendations for the best ride-on, balance, swinging, climbing and jumping toys, plus active “board” games.

Armed with this list of indoor activities, we hope you’ll now be prepared for any type of weather or situation that forces you and your brood inside.  What’s your go-to activity for a rainy or snowy day? We’d love to hear about it – let us know in the comments section below. Found this helpful? We’d love to continue to make your life (with kids en tow) easier and have you  join our What Moms Love community . We’ll hook you up with all of our exclusive resources, including our popular  10 Screen-Free Toys For Guaranteed Quiet Time , our fun  Holiday/Birthday Coupon Book for Kids  and the inspiring  35 Food Subs & Swaps for Healthy Family Meals .

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96 comments.

I am loving this post! My twins are 4 years old and the weather has been super cold and windy lately. Plus my son is sick, so I’ve been staying indoors and there’s only so many paintings and chalk drawings you can do 🙂

Thanks for these ideas. I like the painter’s tape activities as well as the hunting games. Your tip about using two different legos is GENIUS..I know my son would totally find all the pieces before my daughter would, so having two different sizes is perfect!

Thanks for these tips and I’m going to share it with my mamas!

Great ideas!

This is a great list for when you are stuck inside. I need to go out and get some tape. Who knew there were so many fun things to do!??

Where has this post been all my life. Okay pinning away so much good stuff here. Also just became a huge fan of your blog ❤️

Oh my goodness, you have no idea how much I could have used this when I was babysitting in high school!! I LOVE all your ideas, and how they really don’t take much to pull together. Sharing on Pinterest!!

I love this list! Winter lasts so long here and it’s harder to get all that energy out! Saving this!

My kid seriously get cabin fever from being inside for a few hours, let alone days from the weather being bad. I am going to have to create most of these activities for the little dude!

Loving this list…. my kids need to burn some energy especially on these cold days! Love how you incorporated learning too!

My little guy is such a wiggle worm. These are perfect for him!

I am mesmerized by this post! Seriously, I read every single word. I am definitely doing these with my kids because they need to get all their energy out!

This is a HUGE and AWESOME list. I will totally be referring to this for my littles this winter!!!

These are all great. I will be getting some tape, balloons, and ping pong balls right away!

OMG THANK YOU! I have a very active toddler who is somehow never tired, so this is an awesome list to refer to when I need new ideas. Thank you for sharing!

Umm these are absolutely GENIUS ideas!! Props to you, Mama of the year!! Cause I wouldn’t have thought of a single one of these! lol! Now I want to try them all.

Wow who knew you could do so much with just a roll of tape!! Pinning this for future reference. 🙂

WOW!! so many cool ideas here!! I love that there are so many gross motor activities on this list. Awesome post!

This is quite the treasure trove! Thank you! With all of this rain we’ve had this season, I’m dying for some park time with my 3-year old. Hopefully these ideas will keep us busy in the meantime. 🙂

Thank you for all of these amazing ideas! You are so creative. I will definitely be coming back to this post when we have our next snow storm.

Nicole | The Professional Mom Project

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Such an awesome, epic list!

total life saver, we have been inside for almost a week and have a big snowstorm hitting later today

great ideas as a after school teacher our area has had several snow storms back to back and cabin fever has truly set in!

That was brilliant.. thanks for the great tips… love the obstacle course

Love the ideas. I’m a tutor and this will really help during the breaks

Lol this reminds me of back when my brothers and I were little. One of my brothers and I were pretty calm kids. But the youngest one was crazy hyper and restless. If stuck in the house too long, it was a call for disaster waiting to happen.

Oh my gosh, thank you SO much. I am bookmarking this because it is still too cold to play outside here, and there is only so much you can play in the snow! My son will LOVE these for sure! Thank you for putting this together!

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This is an excellent list and I am going to bookmark it. My son is going to love some of these.

Awesome article!! Thanks for sharing these great tips 🙂

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OMG! I am bookmarking this page. What a power house of great activities! And for so many ages. You ROCK! Signing up for your blog!

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Too cool all these game ideas for my 4 kids! Thank you very much What moms love.

You’re so welcome!

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Wow! I think I am only about a quarter of the way through the article, and although I am not normally one to comment, I just had to stop and say thank you! I know my boys and I will love so many of these ideas, especially as winter is here for us now. Thank you for such a comprehensive and inspiring list!

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Wow, this is really fabulous. I didn’t know there were so many ways to keep children busy right under our noses. The activities you have listed here also suit a vast age group. Thanks a lot for sharing this post. I am inspired and would try keeping kids busy with some of these indoor games myself.

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I have been scouting for indoor activities for my twins… very happy to have come across your post…I have already set up their weekend activity for scavenger hunt.. Whatmomloves Thankyou and keep sharing some more activities for lil boys.

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I must tell you, All the activities are amazing and looking forward to doing with my 8-year child. thanks for sharing!

My son loves so much balloon games & dart games. Thanks for your great list.

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There is really no age limit on these. I am going to implement some of these ideas in my year 9 maths class. Mini golf sounds great, groups can design their own holes and then the class can play the course. Thank you!

We agree and sounds like a fabulous idea!

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These are all great. As a table tennis afectionado, I can definately vouch for the ping pong ball catch 🙂

This is just a wonderful Blog, thanks for the great insight and tips. We really appreciate your effort! Keep up the awesome work!

Aly thank you so much!!! Why did I love every single one of your huge list of ideas. XX

Yay! So happy to hear this Mirel. Thank you for leaving such a lovely comment.

Hi. Thanks for this much helpful article. Actually i was searching for some articles on Kids Indoor activities. I liked your article a lot.

Your suggestions are really great for me to play with my children. After playing games, they become active so much. Thank you so much for your sharing.

I have had my kids blow the cotton ball rather than use the spoon 🙂 Gave them wads of fluffy cotton and established a start and finish line. They had to race and see who can blow their cotton ball to the finish line the fastest. They exhausted themselves silly 😀

Excellent ideas…. Really awesome… Thank you so much

Excellent ideas in these days, Thank you soooooo much.

Just read through your indoor activities and games. They are amazing!! Thank you so much for sharing them xx

This is a lovely list of activities. My client has a latex allergy so we will avoid the balloon related activities however but the rest are great. What about cookery? In the winter time I have had fun teaching the kids to cook stewed juicy pears for lunch or dinner or bake up a batch of cupcakes for tea. We have also made applesauce ladled into jars and festive star shaped biscuits in the past for a Christmas Day lunch. You could even try other recipes in addition. The kids love it. I help of course.

Dance is another great activity to try too.

Epic post! Thanks for these amazing ideas! Coming at the right time 🙂

Awesome list! So many great ideas! We’ve done some of these activities and love them! They are actually great!

My kids are very active, they love these games so much, we are gonna try them all at the weekends. My four-year-old-son is interested in numbers and letters, how wonderful is that? Thanks for these great ideas.

the games are reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy brialliant. the kids love it,it has so many physical activities .

Thanks for this much helpful article, all the activities are amazing! I am going to implement some of these ideas in year 9 maths class in my school

My children usually seem to have a lot of pent-up energy that needs to be released through entertaining activities. I was scrolling and looking for some activities for my children when I came across this blog, which offered me various ideas for my children. We’ll try them all out on weekends and have a great time together. Thanks! It was a great blog.

Thanks for putting this one. My 3 year old son is way too energetic to handle!

The article you have shared here is very awesome. I really like and appreciate your work.

Wow! I love this list! It’s extremely thorough, and I love that there’s so many pictures to go with so many of the activities without having to click out of the page. I definitely am going to bookmark this for later when I start running out of ideas! Thanks for sharing these!

Thanks for putting this out there!

Thank you for sharing this.

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Building Social and Emotional Skills at Home

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School classrooms are busy places where young children learn all sorts of things, including social and emotional skills such as how to express feelings and how to work together with friends on a project. Here are some suggestions for helping your child develop social and emotional skills at home.

Puppets.  Teachers sometimes talk with children about conflicts and help them think about solutions while using puppets and families can try this technique at home. Puppets are a great way to introduce children to feeling words like  happy, sad, angry,  and children will sometimes talk to puppets about their feelings. Puppets can also help in discussions about challenging topics, like getting to bed on time.

Think out loud.  When your child hears your thinking process, it helps her understand how to cope with frustration and solve problems: “Whoops. My favorite shopping bag has a hole in it. I’d better take another one with me to the grocery store.”

Read bedtime stories.  There is something magical about this end-of-the-day routine that makes it the ideal time for talking about feelings. Discuss the characters and events in the story. Invite your child to share her thoughts and feelings by asking questions: “What do you think he should do? How do you think she feels? What would you do if you were this character?”

Do a job together.  Instead of asking your child to do a chore alone, do it with her. The two of you might fold laundry, set the table, rake leaves, or paint a wall. Help your child join in by shortening the handle of a broom to make it child-size or providing a small paintbrush or roller.

Play games.  Card and board games and outdoor games such as tag or hop-scotch offer built-in opportunities for helping children learn to take turns, cooperate, handle frustration, and more. While playing games together, focus on fun instead of winning or losing.

Prevent potential problems.  Before a friend comes to play, help your child put away toys he does not want to share. Before taking a bus to the zoo, provide a step-by-step explanation of what you will do: “We will wait at the bus stop for 5 minutes, then get on the bus and sit together and watch the sights go by for about 30 minutes [explain this as the length of one episode of a favorite TV show]. Then we will walk three blocks to the zoo and tour the lion house before anything else!” During the trip, remind your preschooler of what will happen next.  

Source: Adapted from the Message in a Backpack, Teaching Young Children 4 (4): 12

Behavior and Development

50 Environmental Activities Kids Can Do at Home

C limate change is going to continue to dominate conversations as our kids grow up. It can be scary and overwhelming to think about how the world will change due to the environmental crisis. Taking action can really help kids feel more in control and like a part of the environment around them.

From recycled crafts to eco-friendly swaps and more, we’ve gathered fun, educational, and impactful environmental activities that you can do at home.

For more green news and activities, check out our Earth Kids Guide to Green Activities for the Planet , and subscribe to our free Earth Kids newsletter to never miss an article.

Recycled Crafts for Kids

1. turn newspapers, magazines, and even damaged books into collages.

This eco-friendly activity is also budget-friendly, as the only supplies you’ll need are glue and scissors. You can even use collages to make homemade Valentine's cards or holiday cards!

2. Teach your kids to sew while repurposing old clothes

Sewing is such a vital skill for kids to have, and there are tons of beginner projects out there featuring upcycled materials. This list from Thimbles Quilt has a lot of really cool options. If your kid really enjoys sewing, check out our guide to the best sewing machines and kits for kids .

3. Make t-shirt yarn

Repurposing old T-shirts couldn’t be any easier! T-shirt yarn is really fun to make and can be used for so many crafts, from knitting to these recycled friendship bracelets .

4. Unravel old sweaters and knit something new

Knitting is a great hobby for kids (hello, fine motor skills!) but yarn can get really expensive. Plus, acrylic yarn sheds microplastics, making it less than ideal for sustainability. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to unravel old sweaters into balls and balls of yarn. Just look for sweaters that don’t have seams on the torso, as these may be made of shorter pieces of yarn. You can even go to the thrift store just to find sweaters to unravel!

5. Make your own reusable beeswax wraps

If you’re trying to reduce your single-use plastic consumption, these DIY adorable reusable wraps are a great craft for you! Your kid can choose a fabric they like and help with the process. Just be careful with younger kids, as hot wax is involved.

6. Learn to mend holes in your clothes

Mending is a lifelong skill, and it’s one you can start teaching your kids right now. From iron-on patches to learning some simple sewing stitches, kids will love customizing their own clothes while reducing fabric waste. Use this guide to teaching kids mending to get started.

7. Try your hand at darning

Okay, it might seem a little old-fashioned but we can totally see darning coming back in style this year. This is probably a better activity for older kids, as it requires a good amount of precision and patience. But the satisfaction of saving a hole-ridden pair of socks from the landfill is too good to pass up. This super informative post about how to darn is a great place to start.

8. Make shrink plastic crafts from food containers

If your kids love Shrinky Dinks, you’ll be excited to hear that you can make shrink plastic crafts out of items that are probably already in your recycling bin. Saving money and the planet, all at once!

When you make wildflower seed bombs, you can gift them or just plant them! Photo by Katie Sivinski

9. Make local wildflower seed bombs

Native wildflowers are beautiful and incredibly important for pollinators. These DIY seed bombs are the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, Earth Day, Mother's Day, or just because. Making them is super fun too!

10. Make seed paper

DIY seed paper is an easy way to get your kids excited about growing plants. You can use any seeds you want, from herbs to veggies and more! We love writing little notes on these and giving them out as presents. 

11. Reuse your cardboard boxes

Cardboard can really pile up in the recycling bin, especially after the holidays. Give it a second life before it gets recycled with these awesome cardboard crafts .

12. Make a DIY bird feeder

There are tons of amazing DIY birdfeeders out there, but we like this super easy bird treat ornament . As an added bonus, your kids can learn about all the birds they see visiting their ornament.

13. Build a house for local bees

While honey bees get lots of love, they aren’t actually native to North America. There are lots of other native bee species that do the bulk of our pollinating, and they need help too! This adorable DIY mason bee house helps pollinators and may get your kid excited about saving the (native) bees!

14. Make egg-carton flowers or try another recycled craft for kids

There are honestly too many adorable recycled crafts to count! We especially like these easy egg-carton flowers for little ones.

Environmental STEAM Activities for Kids

15. calculate your carbon footprint.

​​Work together as a family to calculate your carbon footprint . You might be surprised about how much carbon dioxide is produced by things like eating meat and taking planes!

16. Calculate your water use

​​​Use the Water Footprint Calculator  to figure out how much water your household uses! Then discuss ways to reduce water consumption, like not watering the lawn and taking showers instead of baths. 

17. Get involved with citizen science

Getting involved in citizen science projects is a really fun way to connect with actual environmental research. You can participate in national projects like SquirrelMapper , or connect with a local organization. PBS Kids has an amazing citizen science database you can browse to find the perfect opportunity. 

This solar oven science experiment offers one tasty reward: ooey, gooey s'mores. Photo by Ally Noel

18. Build a solar oven

This STEM project will totally get your kid excited about science and s’mores! With just a few simple materials, you can build a solar oven in your own backyard and use the energy from the sun to cook. 

19. Make your own recycled paper

If you’ve got lots of scrap paper lying around, try giving it a new life and turning it into your very own recycled paper . This super fun project can get a little messy in the best way, and may inspire young artists to turn old paper into new masterpieces.

20. Look at nature under a microscope

If you’ve got a kid's microscope on hand, or are thinking about getting one for an upcoming birthday, take a look at the tiny structures all around you. You might be surprised at what you see in water, plants, and even snowflakes!

21. Press flowers and leaves

Pressed flowers are fun and easy to make, and they are also an excellent opportunity for some at-home STEAM education.

22. Try plein air painting with kids

Plein air painting is just a fancy way to say painting outside. Did you know that kids who feel more connected to nature are more likely to take environmental action ? And what better way to get connected to nature than to paint your surroundings!

Sila and the Land  teaches about a shared respect for the earth and protecting it for future generations.

Learn More About the Environment

23. listen to a podcast about the environment.

If you like listening to podcasts together, try one of these environmental podcasts for kids ! You might even find your new favorite pod.

24. Explore indigenous teachings on the environment

Indigenous wisdom is an important perspective in environmental work, and these short videos for kids are an amazing way to introduce your kid to alternate ways of thinking about the planet. Or you can opt for a picture book like Sila and the Land !

25. Read a nature-inspired book

There are so many beautiful books about nature that can help kids feel more connected with the natural world around them. We love the variety on this list of  nature books for kids .

26. Learn about all the different types of pollinators (it’s not just bees and butterflies!)

Pollinators are super important to our ecosystems. But, did you know that there are many species that act as pollinators? From flies to bats, learn all about pollinators with this Climate Kids learning guide.

There are all kinds of ways of composting, from a garden bin to a kitchen container. Photo by Maureen Wilkey

Outdoor Activities for Environmentally Friendly Families

27. start a food garden.

Growing your own food isn’t just environmentally friendly, it’s also a great way to get kids interested in what’s growing around them. From a full-fledged backyard farm to a windowsill garden in your apartment , gardening with kids is super rewarding. 

28. Start a pollinator garden

We need pollinators, and pollinators need food! Help them out while also having fun in the dirt by planting a pollinator garden in your backyard (or on your windowsill!)

29. Learn to compost

Composting is an amazing way to directly reduce how much junk you’re sending to the landfill. Check out our guide to composting for families to learn more about how you can make composting work for you.

30. Start a worm farm

You already know your kids are going to be excited about the idea of a worm farm! If you’re a gardener looking to take things to the next level while also reducing food waste, consider turning your compost bin into a worm farm!

31. Plant sprouts in your kitchen

We get it, gardening can feel pretty overwhelming. Maybe growing sprouts is more up your alley! Sprouts are a cheap and easy growing project , and you can do it all in a jar in your kitchen. Plus, your kids will be excited to watch the little green stalks shoot up (they might even consider eating them!)

32. Plan a nature-themed scavenger hunt

Connecting with nature is a great way to encourage environmental awareness in kids. We love doing nature-themed scavenger hunts in the great outdoors. Just make a list of items to find like pinecones, leaves, and even bugs, and step out your front door. For more ideas, check out our roundup of Outdoor Scavenger Hunt Ideas for Kids .

33. Learn about local foraging

Foraging is a great way to shift your perspective on the plants around you. Plus, it gives your kids the opportunity to actually eat what they find on the ground. We recommend taking a foraging walk with an expert, just to be safe.

34. Do some family birding

Even in cities, birds are always all around us. Get your kids excited about watching the birds fly, eat, and socialize. We love the resources offered by Audubon Kids !

35. Learn about the types of rock in your area

Rocks tell us a lot more than you might think about the world around us. The rocks around you might have been brought there by glaciers, or left behind by ancient oceans. Help your kids learn about science and connect with nature by identifying the rocks you find outside!

36. Go on a garbage walk

No, it’s not a walk that makes you feel like garbage. A garbage walk is just a walk where you pick up the trash you see as you go. Surprisingly, kids get really into this idea and it’s a nice way to make an impact in your community. 

37. Plan a national parks trip

If you’re looking to experience the outdoors in a big way, consider planning a national parks trip. Our national parks family travel guide will help you have an amazing time in some of America’s most beautiful places

Almost all plastic bottles and food containers are recyclable. Make a game of sorting your recycling!

Kids Can Help Reduce Your Family’s Environmental Impact

38. participate in no-mow may.

Mowing your lawn can actually harm pollinators! When you mow, you cut down the flowers (like dandelions and clover) that pollinators need to survive the spring. Try skipping mowing for the month of May, or (even better) reducing mowing overall! Learn more about mowing here .

39. Sort your recycling!

Sometimes recycling feels like trying to decode some sort of riddle. What can be recycled and what can’t? Sit down with your kids and sort through everything in your bin using our recycling guide . It’s a fun activity and you might all learn a thing or two about recycling.

40. Have a "no lights" day

This fun little experiment will get your kids excited about energy conservation. Plan a “no lights” day at home, where you vow to turn the lights off for 24 hours to save electricity. While this isn’t a sustainable way to save power, it might get your family talking about energy waste in your home.

41. Learn about energy waste and reduce where you can

Speaking of energy waste, there are things that your family can do to reduce the amount of wasted energy you use. This guide from Environment America is a great place to start.

42. Try reducing water waste in your home

Water conservation is another good place to start if you’re trying to get your kids engaged in environmentalism. And yes, it can be fun too! Check out our guide to water conservation with kids to get started.

43. Do your holiday shopping at the thrift store/try to thrift flip

Instead of buying loads of new stuff every year, consider giving something used a second like. You can even try your hand at “thrift flipping,” where you revamp or DIY thrifted items. You can even use online consignment shops !

44. Carpool, take public transportation, or bike

Reducing your carbon footprint is a great way to make an impact, and driving less is a really significant choice you can make. From carpools to biking, there are lots of alternatives to driving. Have kids talk with their friends and figure out how to team up to make a difference together.

45. Donate items you no longer use

Clutter seems to appear around the house like magic. Work together as a family to collect items for donation, then give them to a local thrift store or organization. 

46. Try meatless Mondays or other eco-friendly dietary swaps

One serving of meat consumes way more resources than a serving of plant protein. Try introducing meatless Mondays or a similar veggie-forward swap with these vegetarian recipes that will win over even the pickiest of eaters .

Raise little activists! Kids are never too young to get involved and make a difference!

Take Action in Your Community

47. fundraise for environmental organizations.

What’s cuter than a lemonade stand? A lemonade stand for a good cause! Work together with your kids to choose an environmental charity, plan a fundraiser, and then donate the proceeds.

48. Reach out to your elected representatives

Did you know that you don’t have to be of voting age to call your elected representatives? If there’s an issue your kids are passionate about (like investing in electric school buses!) you can help them call or write a letter to your local government official. Or take it all the way to the top!

49. Volunteer with your local parks department

If you have parks in your area, you have a parks department. Many parks departments have volunteering programs aimed specifically at kids and teens. From park clean-up days to more long-term positions, it’s a great way to get involved locally.

50. Help your kid start a Green Club at school

When taking action at home isn’t enough, maybe it’s time to bring eco-friendly thinking to school. Help your kid start a green club at their school , or encourage them to join existing environmental organizations.

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• Published: 13 May 2024

Artificial intelligence in surgery

• Chris Varghese   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7369-8639 1 ,
• Ewen M. Harrison   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5018-3066 2 ,
• Greg O’Grady 1 , 3 &
• Eric J. Topol   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1478-4729 4  

Nature Medicine volume  30 ,  pages 1257–1268 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly emerging in healthcare, yet applications in surgery remain relatively nascent. Here we review the integration of AI in the field of surgery, centering our discussion on multifaceted improvements in surgical care in the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative space. The emergence of foundation model architectures, wearable technologies and improving surgical data infrastructures is enabling rapid advances in AI interventions and utility. We discuss how maturing AI methods hold the potential to improve patient outcomes, facilitate surgical education and optimize surgical care. We review the current applications of deep learning approaches and outline a vision for future advances through multimodal foundation models.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are rapidly maturing for medical applications, with many studies determining that their performance can exceed or complement human experts for specific medical use cases 1 , 2 , 3 . Unimodal supervised learning AI tools have been assessed extensively for medical image interpretation, especially in the field of radiology, with some success in recognizing complex patterns in imaging data 3 , 4 . Surgery, however, remains a sector of medicine where the uptake of AI has been slower, but the potential is vast 5 .

Over 330 million surgical procedures are performed annually, with increasing waiting lists 6 , 7 and growing demands on surgical capacity 8 . Substantial global inequities exist in terms of access to surgery, the burden of complications and failure to rescue (that is, post-complication mortality) after surgery 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 . A multifaceted approach to surgical system strengthening is required to improve patient outcomes, including better access to surgery, surgical education, the detection and management of postoperative complications and optimization of surgical system efficiencies. To date, minimally invasive surgery has been a dominant driver of improvements in surgical outcomes, reducing postoperative infections, length of stay and postoperative pain and improving long-term recovery and wound healing. Enhanced recovery programs 14 , improved patient selection, broadening adjuvant approaches and organ-sparing treatments have also been important contributors. We are now entering an era where data-driven methods will become increasingly important to further improving surgical care and outcomes 15 . AI tools hold the potential to improve every aspect of surgical care; preoperatively, with regards to patient selection and preparation; intraoperatively, for improving procedural performance, operating room workflows and surgical team functioning; and postoperatively, to reduce complications, reduce mortality from complications and improve follow-up.

Current AI applications in surgery have been mostly limited to unimodal deep learning (Box 1 ). Transformers are a particular recent breakthrough in neural network architectures that have been very effective empirically in several areas, owing to their improved computational efficiency through parallelizability 16 and their enhanced scalability (with models able to handle vast input parameters). Such transformer models have been pivotal in enabling multimodal AI and foundation models, with substantial potential in surgery.

Emerging applications of AI in surgery include clinical risk prediction 17 , 18 , automation and computer vision in robotic surgery 19 , intraoperative diagnostics 20 , 21 , enhanced surgical training 22 , postoperative monitoring through advanced sensors 23 , 24 , resource management 25 , discharge planning 26 and more. The aim of this state-of-the-art Review is to summarize the current state of AI in surgery and identify themes that will help to guide its future development.

Box 1 Emergent AI models and terminology

Diverse terminologies are used in the literature and for clarity are defined here:

Unimodal AI: models that operate and process data of a singular format, such as images, text or audio alone.

Multimodal AI: models that simultaneously integrate diverse data formats provided as training and prompt inputs, including images, text, biosignals, -omics data and more.

Generative AI: AI systems that can generate new content, such as texts, images (for example, DALL.E 170 ) and other data formats. LLMs are an example of generative AI. These are trained on a vast corpus of language-based parameters.

Transformer models: a type of model that uses self-attention rather than recurrence and convolutions in making predictions that offer advantages in understanding long-range dependencies in input parameters, scalability and improved performance 171 .

Foundation models: large pretrained models that serve a variety of purposes. These models are trained on diverse data sources and can be fine-tuned for specific tasks. Such models serve to decrease the need for recursive and extensive model training.

Supervised learning: models trained on labeled datasets (the majority of applications to date).

Self-supervised learning: models that attempt to create their own data labels on unlabeled input data.

Unsupervised learning: models that evaluate unlabeled input data for inherent structures and relationships using clustering and dimensionality reduction methods.

Preoperative

There is much room for improvement of preoperative surgical care, encompassing areas of active surgical research such as diagnostics, risk prognostication, patient selection, operative optimization and patient counseling—all aspects of the preoperative pathway of patients receiving surgery where AI has emerging capabilities.

Preoperative diagnostics

Patient selection and surgical planning have become increasingly evidence based, but are still contingent on experiential intuitions (and biases), with profound individual and regional variabilities. The influence of AI may emerge most rapidly in the context of preoperative imaging for early diagnosis and surgical planning. As an example, a model-free reinforcement learning algorithm showed promise when applied to preoperative magnetic resonance images to identify and maximize tumor tissue removal while minimizing the impact on functional anatomical tissues during neurosurgery 27 . Technically challenging cases with high between-patient anatomical variations, such as in pulmonary segmentectomy, have been met with pioneering approaches to enhance preoperative planning with novel amalgamations of virtual reality and AI-based segmentation systems. In a pilot study by Sadeghi et al. 28 , AI segmentation with virtual reality resulted in critical changes to surgical approaches in four out of ten patients.

Accurate preoperative diagnosis is an important area of surgical practice with substantial influence on clinical decision-making and therapeutic planning. For example, in the context of breast cancer diagnostics, the RadioLOGIC algorithm extracts unstructured radiological report data from electronic health records to enhance radiological diagnostics 29 . Extraction of unstructured reports using transfer learning (applying cross-domain knowledge to boost model performance on related tasks) showed high accuracy for the prediction of breast cancer (accuracy >0.9), and pathological outcome prediction was superior with transfer learning (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) = 0.945 versus 0.912). This report emphasizes the value of integrating natural language processing of unstructured text within existing infrastructures for promoting preoperative diagnostic accuracy. Another prominent example is a three-dimensional convolutional neural network that detected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma on diagnostic computed tomography and visually occult pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma on prediagnostic computed tomography with AUROC values of 0.97 and 0.90, respectively 30 . Streamlining preoperative diagnostics can optimize integrated multidisciplinary surgical treatment pathways and facilitate early detection and intervention where timely management is prognostically critical 31 . Progress with large language models and integration with electronic healthcare record systems—particularly the utility of foundation models empowering the analysis of unlabeled datasets—could be transformative in enabling earlier disease diagnosis and early treatment before disease progression 32 , 33 .

AI-based diagnosis is one of the most mature areas of surgical AI where model accuracy and generalizability are seeing early clinical translation. Numerous in-depth and domain-specific explorations of the efficacy of AI in endoscopic 34 , 35 , histological 36 , radiological 37 and genomic 38 diagnostics have been outlined elsewhere (see ref. 39 ). These task-specific advances are enabling more accurate diagnostics and disease staging in the oncology space, with substantial potential to optimize surgical planning. However, to date, all applications have been unimodal; novel transformer models that are able to integrate vastly more data, both in quantity and format, could spur further progress in the near future.

Clinical risk prediction and patient selection

High-accuracy risk prediction seeks to enable enhanced patient selection for operative management to improve outcomes, reduce futility 40 , better inform patient consent and shared decision-making 41 , triage resource allocation and enable pre-emptive intervention. It remains an elusive goal of surgical research 18 . Numerous critical reports have highlighted the high risk of bias 42 and overall inadequacy of the high majority of clinical risk scores in the literature, with few penetrating routine clinical practice 43 . It is important to remember that in the pursuit of enhanced predictive capabilities, the novelty of a tool (such as AI) should not supersede a tool’s utility. Finlayson et al. 44 expertly summarize the often false dichotomy of machine learning and statistics; they argue that dichotomizing machine learning as separate to classical statistics neglects its underlying statistical principles and conflates innovation and technical sophistication with clinical utility.

The majority of current AI-based risk prediction tools offer sparse advances over existing tools, and few are used in clinical practice 45 . The COVIDSurg mortality score is one machine learning prediction score based on a generalized linear model (chosen for its superiority to random forest and decision tree alternatives) that shows a validation cohort AUROC of 0.80 (95% confidence interval = 0.77–0.83) 46 . Numerous other machine learning risk scores exist for preoperative prediction of postoperative morbidity and mortality 45 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 . One notable example is the smartphone app-based POTTER calculator, which uses optimal classification trees and outperforms most existing mortality predictors with an accuracy of 0.92 at internal validation 52 , 0.93 in an external emergency surgery context 48 and 0.80 in an external validation cohort of patients >65 years of age receiving emergency surgery 47 . Notably, POTTER also showed improved predictive accuracy compared with surgeon gestalt 53 . Deep learning methods have also shown utility in neonatal cardiac transplantation outcomes, with high accuracy for predicting mortality and length of stay (AOROC values of 0.95 and 0.94, respectively) 54 .

The use of AI in surgical risk prediction remains an emerging field that is lacking in randomized trials 55 and external validation, and has a high risk of bias 56 . Future work should move toward predictions of relevance to clinicians and patients 57 and prioritize compliance with the CONSORT-AI extension 58 , TRIPOD (and its upcoming AI extension) 59 , 60 , DECIDE-AI 61 and PRISMA AI 62 and other relevant reporting guidelines, to advance the field in a standardized, safe and efficient manner while minimizing research waste.

Preoperative optimization

Preoperative optimization is still an underdeveloped concept that is beginning to receive more attention in surgical research 63 and could be leveraged with multimodal inputs. A multifaceted appreciation of patients’ cardiovascular fitness, frailty, muscle function and optimizable biopsychosocial factors could be accurately characterized through multimodal AI approaches leveraging the full gamut of -omics data 64 , 65 . For example, research using AI to detect ventricular function using 12-lead electrocardiograms could rapidly streamline preoperative cardiovascular assessment 66 , 67 , 68 . While more information does not necessarily correlate with improved risk prediction, a more holistic understanding of patient factors in the preoperative setting could be leveraged to optimize characteristics such as sarcopenia, anemia, glycemic control and more, to facilitate improved surgical outcomes.

Patient-facing AI for consent and patient education

Large language models (LLMs)—a form of generative AI—are a generational breakthrough, with the emergence and adoption of ChatGPT occurring at an unprecedented pace and other LLMs emerging at an equally rapid pace. These models have attained high scores on medical entrance exams 69 , 70 and contextualized complex information as competently as surgeons 71 , and there is the potential for patients to interact with them as an initial clinical contact point 72 , 73 . AI models can augment clinician empathy 74 , contribute to reliable informed consent 41 , 71 and reduce documentation burdens. A recent report demonstrates promising readability, accuracy and context awareness of chatbot-derived material for informed consent compared with surgeons 71 . These advances offer a unique opportunity for tailored patient-facing interventions.

While clinical implementation of AI is a work in progress, there is great potential for superior patient-facing digital healthcare. A pilot clinical trial by the company Soul Machines (Auckland, New Zealand) highlights the potential power of amalgamating LLMs and avatar digital health assistants (or digital people) 75 . OpenAI’s fine-tuned generative pretrained transformers and assistant application programming interfaces could be leveraged for such a purpose if solutions to trust and privacy concerns are found 76 , 77 . The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the value of decentralized digital health strategies to enable wider access to healthcare, and as global healthcare demands rise, these promising reports offer a valuable augment to the delivery of healthcare. These concepts also offer a step toward a hospital-at-home future that aims to further democratize healthcare delivery. Such innovations have particular utility in surgical care, where preoperative counseling, surgical consent and postoperative recovery and follow-up could all be augmented by patient-facing AI models validated to show high reliability for target indications 41 , 71 , 78 , 79 .

In current practice, informed consent and nuanced discussions about surgical care plans are frequently confined to time-limited clinic appointments. Chatbots powered by accurate LLMs offer an opportunity for patients to ask more questions, facilitating ongoing communication and better-informed care. Integrated with accurate deep learning-based risk prediction, such AI communication platforms could offer a personalized risk profile, answer questions about preoperative optimization and postoperative recovery and guide patients through the surgical journey, including postoperative follow-up consultations 80 . Early generative AI models are probably already primed for translation to such clinical education settings 81 , with many more rapidly emerging (for example, Hippocratic AI, Sparrow 82 and Gemini (Google DeepMind), BlenderBot 3 (Meta Platforms), HuggingChat and more). Nuanced appreciations of real-world complexity 74 and the introduction of multi-agent conversational frameworks will be key for the testing and implementation of medical AIs 83 . At present, these models are yet to incorporate the vast and historic corpus of the medical literature; however, with specialized fine tuning and advances in unsupervised learning, the accuracy and generality of these tools is likely to improve. Nevertheless, further work to improve the transparency and reliability of such integrations is required 84 , as evidenced by recent examples of inaccurate and unreliable information from LLMs in breast cancer screening 85 .

In summary, multimodal approaches may transform the preoperative patient flow paradigm. The use of unstructured text from electronic health records, in conjunction with preoperative computed or positron emission tomography, genomics, microbiomics, laboratory results, environmental exposures, immune phenotypes, personal physiologies, sensor inputs and more will enable deep phenotyping at the individual patient level to optimize personalized risk prediction and operative planning. Such advances are highly sought after to improve shared decision-making, patient selection and offer individualized targeted therapy.

Intraoperative

The intraoperative period is a data-rich environment, with continuous monitoring of physiological parameters amid complex insults and alterations to anatomy and physiology. This time is the core of surgical practice. Advances in intraoperative computer vision have enabled preliminary progress in the analysis of anatomy, including assessment of tissue characteristics and dissection planes, as well as pathology identification. Likewise, progressing the reliable identification of instruments and stage of operation and the prediction of procedural next steps are important foundations for future autonomous systems and data-driven improvements in surgical techniques 19 .

Events inside the operating theater have substantial impacts on recovery, postoperative complications and oncological outcomes 86 . Yet, despite their pivotal importance, minimal data are currently recorded, analyzed or collected in this setting. Valuable data streams from the intraoperative operative period should be harnessed to contribute to advances in surgical automation and to underpin the utility of AI in the theater space 15 . We envision a future operating room with real-time access to patient-specific anatomy, operative plans, personalized risks and dashboards that integrate information in real time throughout a case, updating based on surgeon and operating team prompts, actions and decisions (Fig. 1 ).

Operating room components with the potential for AI integration are shown in blue. Traditional laparoscopic towers could be integrated with virtual or augmented reality to facilitate improved three-dimensional views, adjustable overlaid annotations and warning systems for aberrant anatomy. They could also overlay the individual patient’s imaging with AI diagnostics to improve R0 resections in oncological surgery, identify anatomical differences and better identify complex planes. Existing diathermy towers could incorporate voice assistants and black box-type systems for audit and quality control. An intraoperative dashboard aligned with the entire theater team could enable virtual consultations, virtual supervision for trainee surgeons and AI-powered access to the corpus of medical knowledge and surgical techniques, all contextualized to the operative plan. In addition, continuous vital signs, anesthetic inputs and patient-centered risks (for example, of hypotension) could be available as the operation progresses, to help the planning of pre-emptive actions and postoperative care. Personalized screens for scrub nurses, indicating stock location, phase detection 169 and the predicted next instrument needed could also improve efficiency.

Intraoperative decision-making

Most pragmatically, enhanced pathological diagnostics from tissue specimens (as overviewed above in the section ‘Preoperative diagnostics’) could optimize surgical resection margins, reduce operative durations and optimize surgical efficiency 87 , 88 . One such example is a recent patient-agnostic transfer-learned neural network that used rapid nanopore sequencing to enable accurate intraoperative diagnostics within 40 minutes 88 , enabling early information for operative decision-making. Multimodal AI interrogation of the surgical field could aid the determination of relevant and/or aberrant anatomy (with major strides toward such surgical vision already occurring in laparoscopic cholecystectomy 19 , 89 ), augment the surgeon’s visual reviews (for example, by employing a second pair of AI 'eyes' to run the bowel when looking for perforation), inform the need for biopsies and quantify the risk of malignancy 90 .

The advantages of AI in hypothetico-deductive surgical decision-making are expertly overviewed by Loftus et al. 25 . Deep learning (in particular neural networks) is devised in an attempt to replicate human intuition—a key element of rapid decision-making among experienced surgeons 91 . One of the first machine learning tools developed for intraoperative decision-making 92 , which has undergone validation and translation to clinical use, is the hypotension prediction index 93 , which has shown proven benefit in two randomized trials 20 , 94 . This represents an early example of a supervised machine learning algorithm that has undergone external validation and the gold standard of randomized clinical testing to demonstrate benefit. Notably, since its advent, numerous advances in AI methods have emerged to strengthen algorithmic performances 95 .

Such models could be improved in the future through continuous learning, ongoing iteration with constant refinement, and external validation. This requires collaboration with regulatory bodies to facilitate safe and monitored development and maturation of algorithms as the field rapidly advances. The iterative nature of these models may pose challenges for clinical evidence requirements to keep pace with the rate of innovation.

The operative team

Early efforts to gather data in the operating room include the OR Black Box, the aim of which is to provide a reliable system for auditing and monitoring intraoperative events and practice variations 96 , 97 . A particularly novel advance toward optimizing surgical teamwork comes from preliminary work toward an AI coach to infer the alignment of mental models within a surgical team 98 . Shared mental models, whereby teams have a collective understanding of tasks and goals, have been identified as a critical component to decreasing errors and harm in safety-critical fields such as aviation and healthcare. Such approaches require further interrogation within a real-world operating room context, but highlight the breadth of opportunities for digital innovation in surgery.

On the theme of surgical teamwork, multimodal digital inputs, including physiological inputs (for example, skin conductance and heart rate variability) for the identification of operative stress, anesthetic inputs (continuous pharmacological and vitals outputs), nursing team staffing inputs and equipment stock and availability inputs, are all routine elements of the operating room experience that could be quantified digitally and integrated into a digital pathway suitable for automation and optimization. The expansion of multimodal inputs and use of generative AI models incorporating both patient and environmental inputs within the operating room present opportunities to augment nontechnical skills that are pivotal in surgery, including communication, situational awareness and operative team functioning 99 , 100 . Operative fatigue, anesthesiologist–surgeon miscommunication, staffing changeovers and shortages, and equipment unavailability are common causes for intraoperative mistakes and are all amenable to digital tracking. A digitized surgical platform can therefore be envisaged to facilitate an AI-enhanced future. The importance of investment toward the platform itself to leverage utility from digital innovations was, for example, embraced by Mayo Clinic in a recent CEO overview 101 .

Surgical robotics and automation

While there has been much progress 19 , 102 , early attempts at computer vision have been limited to specific tasks and have lacked external validation. AI has been applied to unicentric, unimodal video data to identify surgical activity 103 , gestures 104 , surgeon skill 105 , 106 and instrument actions 107 . A demonstrative advance has been made by Kiyasseh et al. 108 , who have developed a unified surgical AI system that accurately identifies and assesses the quality of surgical steps and actions performed by the surgeon using unannotated videos (area under the curve >0.85 at external validation for needle withdrawal, handling and driving). This procedure-agnostic, multicentric approach, with a view to generalizability, facilitates integration into real-world practice 108 . Technical advances, such as through Meta’s self-supervised (SEER) model currently offer particular promise in the realm of computer vision 109 . Similar efforts in the future that aim to improve the feedback available to surgeons, tactile responses from laparoscopic and robotic systems and the identification of optimal surgical actions in the intraoperative window could be advanced through multimodal inputs, including rich physiological monitoring, rapid histological diagnostics and virtual reality-based guidance (for example, toward identification of aberrant anatomy and tissue planes, perfusion assessments and more). Low-risk opportunities for the integration of these emerging technologies include co-pilot technologies for operative note writing; with surgeon oversight, providing verification and the potential for iterative model improvement 110 , 111 , 112 .

Computer vision, surgical robotics and autonomous robotic surgery are at the very early stages of development, with incremental but exciting strides occurring. Importantly, robust frameworks have recently been developed to progress the development of surgical robotics and complementary AI technologies, with guidelines for evaluation, comparative research and monitoring throughout clinical translational phases 113 . Several reviews offer more in-depth analysis of these emerging topics 108 , 114 , 115 .

Operative education

Surgical education has long been entrenched in apprenticeship models of learning, with little progress toward objective metrics and useful mechanisms for feedback to trainee operators. As discussed above, the operating room setting is a data-rich environment that could be leveraged toward automated, statistical approaches to tailored learning. Reliable feedback results in improved surgical performance 116 , 117 , 118 , and data-driven optimization of surgical skill assessment has the potential to have a trans -generational impact on surgical practice 119 , 120 . Recently, the addition of human explanations to the supervised AI assessment of surgical videos improved reliability across different groups of surgeons at different stages of training, such that equitable and robust feedback could be generated through AI approaches 108 . This offers feedback to learners with mitigation against different quality feedback based on different surgeon sub-cohorts 121 . This is a promising example of the nuanced approaches to model development that will be key to the translation and implementation of AI models in real-world surgical education. An exploration of the potential biases of AI explanations in surgical video assessment 122 —namely under- and overskilling biases, based on the surgeon’s level of training—highlights the importance of comparisons with current gold standards and utilizing AI outputs as data with which to iterate, learn and optimize toward real-world benefits. In another example, an AI coach had both positive and negative impacts on the proficiency of medical students performing neurosurgical simulation, including improved technical performance at the expense of reduced efficiency 123 . This example also shows the importance of expert guidance in the development and implementation of AI tools in specialized domains, as well as the need for ongoing assessment of such programs. The opportunity to harness AI in operative education is evidenced by the growing number of registered randomized trials evaluating this approach 22 , 124 , 125 .

The intraoperative period is, therefore, a data-rich environment for surgical AI with early success seen with intraoperative diagnostic and surgical training models, as well as early emerging capabilities in computer vision and automation. Intraoperative applications are diverse and critical for the future of surgery, with vast potential to optimize nontechnical intraoperative functions such as communication, teamwork and skill assessment. Ongoing work toward computer vision systems will lay the groundwork for future autonomous surgical systems.

Postoperative

Postoperative monitoring.

The aim of transforming hospital-based healthcare through hospital-at-home services is to liberalize and democratize healthcare and to improve equity and access while unburdening overloaded hospitals. Such a future will enable patients to recover in a familiar environment and will optimize patient recovery, convalescence and their return to functioning in society. Major strides have been made toward reducing postoperative lengths of stay, facilitating early discharge from hospital and improving functional recovery, largely through minimally invasive surgical approaches, encouragement of earlier return to normal activities, enhanced postoperative monitoring, early warning systems and better appreciation of important contributors to recovery. The implementation of enhanced recovery after surgery programs has been pivotal toward this goal.

However, the postoperative period frequently remains devoid of data-driven innovations, crippling further progress. Many hospitals still rely on four-hourly nurse-led observations, unnecessarily prolonged postoperative stays driven by historic protocols and a 'one size fits all' approach to the immediate postoperative period. Ample opportunity exists for wearables to offer continuous patient monitoring, enabling multimodal inputs of physiological parameters that can contribute toward data-driven, patient-specific discharge planning. This would have the added benefit of unburdening nursing staff from cumbersome vital sign rounds, freeing up time and capacity for more patient-centered nursing care. Leveraging postoperative data can further guide discharge rehabilitation goals and interventions, inform analgesic prescriptions and prognosticate adverse outcomes.

One systematic review highlights 31 different wearable devices capable of monitoring vital signs, physiological parameters and physical activity 23 , but further work is required to realize the potential of these data, including improving the quality of research and reporting 126 , 127 . We envision a future where continuous inputs can be integrated into predictive analytics and dashboard-style interfaces to enable rapid escalation, earlier prognostication of complications and reduced mortality from surgical complications 128 , 129 . Intensive care units are an example of a highly controlled, data-rich environment where such interventions are emerging, with the potential to modify the postoperative course 130 . Classical machine learning approaches, such as random forests, have been robustly applied in other heterogenous, multimodal time-series applications and stand to have particular value in the postoperative monitoring setting. For example, the explainable AI-based Prescience system monitors vital signs, predicts hypoxemic events five minutes before they happen and provides clinicians with real-time risk scores that continuously update with transparent visualization of considered risk factors 131 , 132 .

To enable multimodal data-driven insights in postoperative sensors, a plethora of novel medical devices and sensors are being pursued (Fig. 2 ). Real-time physiological sensing of wound healing 133 , 134 , remote identification of superficial skin infections 135 , 136 and cardiorespiratory sensors 137 , 138 are all putative technologies to enhance postoperative monitoring.

Examples of innovative sensors include chest- and axilla-based electrocardiogram, respiratory rate, tidal volume, temperature and skin impedance sensors. In the postoperative setting, when patients are mobilizing and discharged home, wrist- and finger-based sensors offer a safety netting system for the monitoring of sympathetic stress (via heart rate variability and skin impedance), postoperative arrhythmia and wound healing (for the early identification of superficial skin infection and/or wound dehiscence). Sensor-based technologies can be catergorized as continuous inpatient monitoring and early post-discharge monitoring to enable hospital-at-home services.

Complication prediction

The prediction of complications after surgery has been the goal of many academic studies 139 , 140 and presents a formidable challenge in a complex postoperative setting, with myriad variables affecting care and outcomes. However, the early detection of complications 138 , 141 —in particular, devastating outcomes such as anastomotic leaks after rectal cancer surgery and postoperative pancreatic fistulas after pancreatic surgery 142 , 143 —is likely to have a substantial impact on the ability of healthcare systems to reduce mortality following complications 144 , 145 . MySurgeryRisk represents one of the few advances in complication prediction, using a machine learning algorithm 50 . However, despite promising performance in single-center studies 68 , there is little understanding of how to scale these algorithms to other health systems. The value of algorithmic approaches to complication prediction 18 and postoperative monitoring after pancreatic resections has been demonstrated in The Netherlands 146 , serving as a reproducible model to aspire to. Wellcome Leap’s US$50 million SAVE Program has identified failure to rescue from postoperative complications as a leading cause of death and the third most common cause of death globally 147 , and has prioritized this as a target for innovation. Its goals focus on advanced sensing, monitoring and pattern recognition 148 . This remains a nascent field with numerous attempts but few breakthroughs, making complication prognostication a high-value target for AI-based technologies, particularly as sensors 149 , wearables 23 and devices capable of enabling multimodal, temporally rich inputs emerge.

Home-based recovery

In the United States, 50% of those who undergo a surgical procedure are over 65 years of age 150 . With advancing age, recovery can be prolonged and periods of return to baseline activities of daily living (ADLs) can extend beyond several months. Kim et al. 151 have proposed a multidimensional, AI-driven, home-based recovery model enabled by frequent, noninvasive assessments of ADLs. They centered their proposed paradigm shift on the basis of: (1) continuous real-time data collection; (2) nuanced assessment of relevant measures of activities of daily living; and (3) innovative assessments of ADLs to be leveraged in the postoperative, post-discharge and home-based setting. Again, these innovations would be driven by sensor technologies 152 , including the continuous detection of video, location, audio, motion and temperature data in various home-based settings, integrated to provide a continuous assessment of activity patterns. These data contribute toward phenotyping recovery patterns and predicting adverse outcomes (for example, falls), informing care needs and personalized interventions in conjunction with multidisciplinary teams (such as occupational therapists). Systems-level implementation, data privacy and real-world prospective validation are awaited. ClinAIOps (clinical AI operations) is a recent framework for integrating AI into continuous therapeutic monitoring in a way that could be directly translated toward postoperative home-based monitoring 153 .

As innovations proliferate toward the goal of remote postoperative monitoring, including mobile technologies 24 , sensors 149 , wearables 23 and hospital-at-home services, we have identified the key limitations to advancement to be the lack of routine large-scale implementation efforts, collaborations and comprehensive innovation evaluations in line with the IDEAL (idea, development, exploration, assessment and long-term follow-up) framework 154 .

Building the evidence base

Emerging AI technologies need to be robustly evaluated in line with existing innovation frameworks 113 , 155 and, with the advent of multimodal and generative models, regulatory oversight and monitored implementation are pivotal. Complex intervention frameworks provide a robust tool to facilitate ongoing monitoring and rapid troubleshooting 156 . Engagement with all stakeholders, including patients, administrators, clinicians, industry and scientists, will be important to align visions and work concertedly toward improved surgical care.

While emerging models demonstrate promise, robust, prospective, randomized evidence is required to demonstrate improvements in patient care. To date, only six randomized trials of AI exist in surgery (Table 1 ), all of which employed unimodal approaches, but the increasing number of trial registrations on the topic of assessing the efficacy of AI interventions is promising. AI offers diverse strengths and potential across many fields, but development alone is insufficient. Evaluation, validation, implementation and monitoring are required. The implementation of AI platforms at the pre-, intra- and postoperative phases should be guided by robust evidence of the benefits, such as a more accurate and timely diagnosis, reduced complications and improved systems efficiencies.

Future of surgical AI

Medicine is entering an exciting phase of digital innovation, with clinical evidence now beginning to accumulate behind advances in AI applications. Domain-specific excellence is emerging, with vast potential for translational progress in surgery. A sector of medical practice that once lagged behind in terms of evidence-based medicine 157 , surgery has evolved to thrive on world-class research and evidence 158 . Surgery now equals other fields, such as cardiology, in terms of the quantity of randomized trials in AI applications, only lagging behind frontrunner fields such as gastroenterology and radiology, where task-specific applications are opportune, particularly around image processing 55 . In this Review, we have highlighted many of the most pragmatic and innovative emerging use cases of AI in surgery, with a particular focus on direct feasibility and preparedness for clinical translation, but there remain numerous additional examples and untapped avenues for further pursuit. As we pioneer surgical AI, the values of privacy, data security, accuracy, reproducibility, mitigation of biases, enhancement of equity, widening access and, above all, evidence-based care should guide our technological advances.

Reviews of AI in surgery frequently speculate toward autonomous robotic surgeons. In our view, this is the most distant of the realizable goals of surgical AI systems. While much attention has also been given to surgical automation 159 , robotics and computer vision, these efforts should be contextualized in a time period where robotic surgery has yet to definitively demonstrate its advantage over other minimally invasive approaches 159 , 160 , 161 . In a resource-limited global surgical landscape, it remains to be seen whether AI-driven automation may offer the scalability to robotic surgical platforms that may help define its clinical value.

Surgery poses specific challenges for AI integration that are distinct from other areas of medicine. There is a paucity of digital infrastructure in most healthcare settings such that annotated datasets and digitized intraoperative records are rarely available 162 . In addition, procedural heterogeneity, acuity and rapidly changing clinical parameters represent a challenging and dynamic environment in which AI interventions will be required to deliver accurate and evolving output. Despite these known challenges, targeted work in these areas, including growing priority toward digital infrastructure, data security and privacy, as well as unsupervised AI paradigms, demonstrates substantial promise.

Transformer models are poised to enable real-time analytics of multi-layered data, including patient anatomy, biomarkers of physiology, sensor inputs, -omics data, environmental data and more. When leveraged by a fine-tuned understanding of the corpus of medical knowledge, such models stand to have a vast impact on surgical care 64 . At the time of writing, few examples exist for novel generative AI models in surgery. In the sections above, we present several opportunities for such generalizable AI models unburdened by labeling needs to be implemented in surgical care as the generalist AI surgeon augmenter. These approaches are common to AI in medicine, with the majority of approaches using decision trees, neural networks and reinforcement learning 55 . Early implementations of existing LLMs for text generation, data extraction and patient care are undoubtedly underway 163 , with notable caveats such as model accuracy degradation, output overconfidence, lack of data privacy and regulatory approvals and a deficiency of prospective clinical trials yet to be overcome.

Numerous apprehensions remain with regard to the integration of AI into surgical practice, with many clinicians perceiving limited scope in a field dominated by experiential decision-making competency, apprentice model teaching structures and hands-on therapies. However, with the rapid development of AI in software, hardware and logistics, these perceived limitations in scope will be continuously tested. We envision a collaborative future between surgeons and AI technologies, with surgical innovation guided first and foremost by patient needs and outcomes.

AI in surgery is a rapidly developing and promising avenue for innovation; the realization of this potential will be underpinned by increased collaboration 154 , robust randomized trial evidence 55 , the exploration of novel use cases 164 and the development of a digitally minded surgical infrastructure to enable this technological transformation. The role of AI in surgery is set to expand dramatically and, with correct oversight, its ultimate promise is to effectively improve both patient and operator outcomes, reduce patient morbidity and mortality and enhance the delivery of surgery globally.

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Varghese, C., Harrison, E.M., O’Grady, G. et al. Artificial intelligence in surgery. Nat Med 30 , 1257–1268 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02970-3

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Received : 24 January 2024

Accepted : 03 April 2024

Published : 13 May 2024

Issue Date : May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02970-3

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