With summer vacations around the corner and soaring heat at its peak, it becomes mandatory to engage the kids with indoor games. Of course, Indoor games are a lot of fun when you choose age-specific games for your kids.
Indoor games could add a lot of learning to your child like vocabulary building, team spirit, creativity, etc. The biggest challenge that comes while choosing any indoor game is to select a game that your child will be able to understand and play.
Here, are some nice games for kids in age group of 7 to 10 years for you to check out. These games are very simple and a lot of fun too.
1. Balance Beam
A very interesting game for the young kids. For this, you need to have just a couple of sticky tapes in different colours and you are good to get going with a lot of fun. For this,
• Arrange a few sticky tapes in a different colour from a stationary shop.
• Choose an open space in the house. Clean the floor with a wet cloth to remove the dust, if there is any.
• Now stick these tapes on the floor to form straight or curved lines. You can stick different colours of sticky tapes to establish lines of different colours.
• The kids must walk on these tapes only in the game.
• Frame rules like- on the yellow line the kids must limp, on orange they must walk with one eye closed, on red they need to move backward, etc.
• You can come up with any new rules and the kids need to follow these rules. The one who does not follow the rule is out.
• You can make different shapes with these sticky tapes and can come up with new innovative rules.
• This game is a lot of fun and the kids can play for hours together.
2. Vocabulary Game
It is an excellent game that can be played with two or more kids. For this, take a piece of paper, eraser, pencil and an hourglass. The game is straightforward to play.
• The game begins with choosing an alphabet of choice. Choose an alphabet of your choice and say as many words as you can that start with that alphabet until the time is up in the hourglass.
• The number of words you say correctly is the number of points you get. The other player has to choose the last letter of the last word said by you and repeat the same.
• Use paper to track records of the point.
• To increase the level of the game, the participant must say a word followed by another one with ending letter of the first word, so on and so forth.
• It is an exciting game, and the kids will enjoy playing these games a lot.
3. Bowling Alley
A very interesting game that can be played using empty cans, masking tape, and tennis or a plastic ball.
• Take a few empty water bottles or a few empty cans.
• To make this game look more interesting, colour the cans.
• Now, based on the kids age, gauge what should be the length of the bowling alley.
• Put the masking tape at the appropriate distance to mark the start point. All the players need to stand before this tape and throw the ball from here.
• Stack the cans at the end of the bowling alley and the players need to roll the ball to hit the cans.
• The one who drops the maximum number of cans with the ball is the winner.
4. Pitching Balls
It is a simple yet interesting game to play. For this, you need a chart paper, glue, masking tape, a couple of small plastic balls.
• Make a cone with the chart paper. Stick the open end of the paper to get a cone.
• Paste this cone on the wall at the height of 5 feet or above.
• Now, choose a starting point around 5 feet away from the wall.
• Stick the masking tape to form a line.
• The players need to stand before this line and throw the balls in the cone.
• The one who can drop maximum balls in the cone is the winner.
5. Creativity with Wheat Dough
This is a fantastic game which involves a lot of fun-filled creativity. For this you need well-kneaded wheat dough (Shouldn’t be lose), oil or pastel colours, a ruler, pen, pencil, small rolling pin/smooth pencil or pen.
• Knead some wheat dough into a smooth tight dough.
• Pull out some dough and make small balls out of it of the same size.
• Divide equal balls amongst all the kids.
• Roll out small portions of the dough into a thin flat roundel. Using these, the kids can make a butterfly, flower, fish, mountain, dog, cat, shapes like circle, rectangle, triangle, or a boy, boat or anything they feel like.
• Use pencil, pens, ruler to carve out some designs while making anything.
• Once you are done making things of your choice, allow them to dry.
• The dough usually takes a few hours to dry.
• Once, the dough has dried then you colour them with different colours and leave it to dry again.
• Your beautiful creations are ready. Show them to your friends and see the excitement in all.
6. Follow your Leader
Amongst all the kids, choose a volunteer who would want to be a leader. The game is straightforward. The leader needs to act, emote, jump, clap, dance, sing and do any such thing.
The rest need to follow the leader as it is.
This game is a lot of fun and soon you will have a room filled with laughter.
7. Scrabble
You must have played this game in your childhood. Scrabble is an apt game for kids between 7 to 10 years of age. This game expands the thinking abilities of the child and contributes immensely towards vocabulary and word building.
The kids may need some guidance to understand the rules initially, but later just with little supervision they can play the game and enjoy it to the fullest.
You need not buy this game instead you can make one at home. For this,
• Take a piece of paper and draw vertical and horizontal lines to get equal-sized small square boxes. Write all the alphabets in the boxes.
• Using a scissor, cut out the alphabets.
• In one corner, mark numbers between 1 to 9 on each alphabet to give them score.
• Use these alphabets to make small three lettered words.
• For every word, add all the letters of the word to calculate the score earned by each child.
• The child can add new words either vertically or horizontally to the existing word.
• This game is apt for 2 to 7 kids to play together.
8. Musical riddles
Make all the kids sit in a circle. The first child will sing a song or a rhyme. The next child will have to sing a song starting with the last letter of the last word of the song sung by the previous child.
To make it more interesting give 5 seconds to each child to start figuring out a song, post which the time is out. The one who exceeds this time limit loses a point and the chance is passed on to the next member.
9. Musical Chair
This is indeed one of the most popular indoor games and has been favourite of all kids for decades now. In this game:
• Arrange the chairs in a circle. The number of chairs should be one less than the number of players.
• Arrange the chairs facing outward. Play music and the members have to run around the chairs in a circle.
• As soon as the music stops, all the players need to sit on the chair closest to them quickly.
• The one who is left without a chair is out. Now remove one more chair and the game continues. The game continues till only two members are left chasing one single chair.
• The one who gets to sit on the chair out of the last two players is the winner.
The game can be played with three and more members, but the more the number of members the more fun will be there.
10. Storytelling
Draw or choose some characters and show it to the kids. The characters must be introduced with a brief introduction to the kids. Now, ask the kids to make a story by using these characters.The one who makes the most interesting story or says the logically correct story with no missing links is the winner.
These are some fun-filled games that you can engage your kids to play with this summer. The more you engage the kids in new indoor games the more they get interested in playing them. Games are indeed one of the best ways to keep your child entertained and productively involved in activities.