Frecklebox Blog

Five Cozy Indoor Activities for Winter

When the weather outside is frightful and you have a house full of bored, restless kids, don’t fret. Turn a snowy, rainy or just plain chilly day into a party with these fun and easy indoor activities perfect for winter vacation.

1.     Indoor Picnic
Who needs sunshine to have a great picnic? Spread out a blanket and placemats on the living room floor and make a selection of simple finger foods (sandwiches, bagels and cream cheese, pretzels, fruit and cookies are good options) and a thermos of hot chocolate or tea for a delicious feast. For a little extra fun, go through the costume box and dress up with a theme in mind – anything from a day at the beach to the knights of the Round Table.

2.     Puppet Show
Looking for indoor activities with a dramatic flair during your winter vacation? Channel all that energy into writing, directing and performing a Broadway-worthy puppet show. Use puppets you already have or make your own with old socks, markers, glue, scraps of fabric, pipe cleaners, yarn or any other craft supplies you have on hand. Add personality to each puppet and get ready to break a leg on stage!

3.     Hide-and-Seek
This classic game is sometimes even more fun on a cold, gloomy day. Pick someone to be “It,” count to 100 and search for everyone else throughout the house (give this person a flashlight to feel more like a detective on a case). Keep playing until everyone has been “It” at least once.

4.     Sardines
For a different spin on hide-and-seek, play sardines, where one child hides and everyone else searches for her. If a seeker finds the person hiding, he joins her instead of pointing her out to the rest of the search party. This continues until all of the kids are squeezed into the one hiding place. The first seeker to find the person hiding gets to hide next.

5.     Reader’s Theater
Practice reading aloud in a fun and theatrical way with reader’s theater, where kids read lines from a script instead of memorizing them. It’s so easy you can put on a short production in an afternoon. Look at the library for scripts or print them out online.