100 Things With Kids

25 Indoor Learning Activities for Kids

Want your kids to learn something while their stuck inside the house? Here are 25 indoor learning activities for kids.

1. Learn a Foreign Language

What You’ll Need:

  • YouTube language learning videos (See Supplemental Resources section for a link)

Make it Happen:

  1. Follow the videos.

Supplemental Resources:

This YouTube channel has great foreign language videos:

Rock ‘N Learn

2. Baking Soda & Vinegar Volcano

What You’ll Need:

  • A tall glass
  • A tray, baking pan with sides, or a sink
  • Baking soda
  • Vinegar

Make it Happen:

  1. Place the glass in the center of a tray, baking pan with sides, or even in your sink.
  2. Fill the container about 1/4 full of baking soda.
  3. Pour in some vinegar and watch the eruption!

3. Make Balloon Rockets

What You’ll Need:

  • Plastic straws
  • String
  • Painter’s tape
  • Rubber bands
  • Balloons

Make it Happen:

  1. Cut a length of string long enough to run across the room that you will be using for this activity.
  2. Use painter’s tape to secure one end of the string to the wall.
  3. Run the string through the straw and secure the other side of the string to the opposite wall.
  4. Blow up the balloon and pinch the end closed to keep the air in.
  5. Tape the balloon to the straw (this is a two-person operation). Make sure that the mouth of the balloon is pointing in the opposite direction from the way that you want the balloon to travel.
  6. Release the balloon and watch your balloon-rocket fly!

Other Thoughts: For extension activities, try experimenting with different types of string, different sizes of balloon, different types of straws, and positioning the string at different angles.

4. Letter Scavenger Hunt

What You’ll Need:

  • Random objects from around the house

Make it Happen:

  1. Choose one letter of the alphabet and have kids go around the house and gather objects that start with that letter.

5. Book + Art = Fun!

What You’ll Need:

  • “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” by Charles Shaw
  • White tempera paint
  • Blue construction paper

Make it Happen:

  1. Read “It Looked Like Spilt Milk”.
  2. Add a small amount of white paint to the center of a piece of blue construction paper.
  3. Fold the construction paper in half so that the paint is in the middle and spread the paint around with your fingers.
  4. Open the paper to see your creation!

Supplemental Resources:

Here is a link to the classic “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” by Charles Shaw:

Amazon: It Looked Like Spilled Milk

6. Stuffed Animal Sort

What You’ll Need:

  • A big pile of stuffed animals

Make it Happen:

  1. Have the kids sort their stuffed animals by color. Or, for older kids, have them arrange them from largest to smallest.

Other Thoughts: Have kids come up with their own criteria for sorting. Tails or no tails. Big or small ears. Whatever you can come up with.

7. Make a Milky Rainbow

What You’ll Need:

  • Whole milk
  • Tray or baking pan with sides
  • Food coloring
  • Liquid dish soap

Make it Happen:

  1. Pour whole milk into a tray or baking pan so that it just covers the bottom.
  2. Add about 6-8 drops of different colored food coloring onto the milk in different spots.
  3. Add 4-5 drops of liquid soap onto the drops of food coloring and watch the rainbow!

8. Explore Your Sense of Taste

What You’ll Need:

  • Various foods from your kitchen. While any foods can work, ones that work well are:
    • Lemons
    • Chocolate
    • Peanut butter
    • Candy sprinkles
    • Carrots
    • Cheese sticks
    • Grapes
    • Popcorn

Make it Happen:

  1. Divide foods into bite-sized portions (don’t let kids see which foods you will be serving up).
  2. Blindfold kids and give them each a bite of the first food. See who can guess what it is first.
  3. Repeat for all remaining foods.

9. Rice Writing

What You’ll Need:

  • Shallow tray or baking pan with sides
  • Uncooked rice (amount needed will vary depending on the size of your tray or pan)

Make it Happen:

  1. Fill a shallow tray or baking pan with just enough uncooked rice to cover the bottom of the container.
  2. Kids can then practice writing letters, number, shapes, etc. in the rice.

10. Play Tape Shapes

What You’ll Need:

  • Painter’s tape

Make it Happen:

  1. Use painter’s tape to create shapes on the floor.
  2. Call out directions for kids to follow that lead them from shape to shape (“slide to the square”, “hop to the triangle”, “crawl to the pentagon”, etc.).

11. Do Some Science

What You’ll Need:

  • Book of science experiments

or

  • Website with experiment directions

Make it Happen:

  1. Follow directions laid out in book or on website

Supplemental Resources:

Check out these great books of science experiments:

Amazon: Steve Spangler’s Super-Cool Science Experiments for Kids

Amazon: Smithsonian 10-Minute Science Experiments

Or, check out Science Bob:

Easy Science Experiments You Can Do at Home or at School

12. Read a book!

What You’ll Need:

  • A book

Make it Happen:

  1. Cuddle up in a cozy chair and read the book out loud to your children.

Other Thoughts: Using funny voices for different characters always ups the fun factor.

13. Oil and Water Mix-Up

What You’ll Need:

  • Clear plastic water or soda bottle
  • Water
  • Food coloring
  • Vegetable oil

Make it Happen:

  1. Fill a plastic water or soda bottle about 1/2 way with water.
  2. Add a few drops of food coloring to the water.
  3. Add cooking oil to the water until the bottle is 3/4 full.
  4. Screw the lid on tightly and let the kids shake the bottle as hard as they can can.
  5. Put the bottle back down watch as the liquids separate.

14. Learn How to Create Origami

What You’ll Need:

  • Printer paper
  • Book of origami directions

or

  • Website of origami directions (see Supplemental Resources section)

Make it Happen:

  1. Follow directions laid out in book or on website.

Supplemental Resources:

An amazing kids’ origami book:

Amazon: Origami Book For Kids

Or, here’s a good website:

Origami For Kids

15. Story Re-Telling

What You’ll Need:

  • A book

Make it Happen:

  1. Read a story to your kids.
  2. Have them tell the story back to you in your own words.

16. Watch an Educational Movie

What You’ll Need:

  • Educational DVD (one of my favorites is the Letter Factory)
  • TV
  • DVD player

Make it Happen:

  1. Watch video with your kids so that you can answer questions or clarify things that might be confusing to them.

Other Thoughts: Television can be overdone, but it is a great learning tool when used in moderation.

Supplemental Resources:

Here is a link to The Letter Factory (I cannot overstate how amazing this learning tool is):

Amazon: The Letter Factory

17. Write with Magnets

What You’ll Need:

  • Magnet letters

or

  • Magnetic poetry kit

Make it Happen:

  1. Use letters to put letters in alphabetical order, create words, or even sort letters by color.
  2. Use poetry kit to create your own poems or sentences.

Supplemental Resources:

Here’s a fun magnet letter kit:

Amazon: Magnetic Letters

And a fun poetry builder kit:

Amazon: Magnetic Poetry Kit

18. Make Oobleck

What You’ll Need:

  • 1 cup water
  • 2 cups cornstarch
  • Food coloring (if desired)

Make it Happen:

  1. Mix water, corn starch, and food coloring.
  2. Let your children dig their hands in and watch them be amazed to explore this mixture which shows qualities of both a liquid and a solid.

Other Thoughts: This can get messy, so I would do this one in a room with hard flooring. I would also recommend smocks for the kiddies.

19. Play Some Computer Learning Games

What You’ll Need:

  • Computer
  • Internet access
  • Web-based kid friendly games (good sites are PBS Kids, Fun Brain, Sprout, Starfall, and Nick Jr.)

Make it Happen:

  1. Go to the game website of your choice and play away.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend sitting with younger children to assist. Also, please set up parental controls to keep internet usage kid-safe.

20. Reading and Soup

What You’ll Need:

  • The book “Stone Soup“
  • Ingredients to cook soup from scratch (you can use the ingredients as laid out in the book, or find a recipe)

Make it Happen:

  1. Read the book aloud to kids.
  2. Cook up your own batch of soup together.

Supplemental Resources:

Here is a link to the book “Stone Soup”:

Amazon: Stone Soup

And a stone soup recipe:

Stone Soup Recipe: How to Make It

21. Play “What’s in the Sock?”

What You’ll Need:

  • Small household objects. Good ideas are:
    • Spoon
    • Toy car
    • Crayon
    • Small dolls or toy animals
    • Etc.
  • Sock
  • Rubber band

Make it Happen:

  1. Place small household object in a sock and rubber band or tie the sock shut.
  2. Give the sock to the child and let them use their sense of touch to try to figure out what’s in the sock.
  3. Repeat with different objects.

22. Mix Colors

What You’ll Need:

  • Plastic test-tubes
  • Droppers
  • Food coloring

Make it Happen:

  1. Fill test tubes halfway with water.
  2. Add a different color of food coloring to each tube.
  3. Let kids use droppers to transfer the colored water between tubes.

23. Tornado in a Bottle

What You’ll Need:

  • Two clear plastic water or soda bottles (2-liter bottles work well
  • Cyclone tube

Make it Happen:

  1. Fill a plastic bottle with water until it reaches around three quarters full.
  2. Use the cyclone tube to securely attach an empty plastic bottle to the top of the water-filled bottle. You can also use packing tape if you don’t want to invest in the cyclone tube.
  3. Turn the bottle upside down and hold it by the neck.
  4. Quickly spin the bottle in a circular motion for a few seconds, stop and look inside to see if you can see a mini tornado forming in the water.

Supplemental Resources:

Here is a cyclone tube on Amazon:

Amazon: Tornado in A Bottle

24. Mazes

What You’ll Need:

  • Crayons, markers, or colored pencils
  • Book of mazes

or

  • Printable mazes

Make it Happen:

  1. Use your writing implement to complete the mazes. Younger kids may need some help from you.

Supplemental Resources:

Here is a book of kid-friendly mazes:

Amazon: Jumbo Book of Amazing Mazes

Or check out this great website with printables:

Mazes, Free Printables, Easy to Hard

25. Explore a Kid’s Magazine

What You’ll Need:

  • A subscription to a children’s magazine (my kids love getting their monthly Highlights magazines, but some other good kids magazines are Zoobooks, National Geographic Kids, and Sports Illustrated for Kids).

Make it Happen:

  1. Hunker down and read the magazine together.

See Also:

25 Indoor Arts & Crafts Projects for Kids

25 Indoor Active Play Ideas for Kids

25 More Indoor Fun Ideas for Kids