30 Fun Things To Do When Stuck At Home

Move more at home…

At a time of crisis, when stuck at home, it's easy to forego physical activity because your routine is turned upside down. We know movement is an essential part of maintaining physical, mental and emotional well-being, so how can we make it more fun for you and the kids to stay healthy at home?

If you can get outside to play, do so. Moving outside has so many benefits; it's a place children can learn about their natural environment and get a change of scenery. It reduces stress and allows you to blow off steam; it makes us feel better. But what if you can't get outside? As carers, we can use games to keep kids healthy and happy at home through active play. The younger we start taking part in varied activities, the better off we will be later on in life, but it's never too late to start.

One of the best ways to help your family be more active is to start a habit of activity yourself – whatever you can do to get yourself moving and include your children. Adults who play with children perform an essential role in children's development. Being a healthy role model will help them stay physically and mentally fit. Show children that movement can be fun and strengthens family bonds.

Here are 30 games and active play activities, which you may find useful even if there are no youngsters around. Not all activities will be suitable for all, so adapt and modify according to age and ability.

RELATED: How To Quit A Sedentary Lifestyle

ANIMAL MOVES

Animal Moves are great for mind and body and are fun for kids and kidults too.

Train like an animal to be more human with these 6 movement snacks.

#1 Kick like a donkey

#2 Crawl like a Bear

#3 Walk like a Crab

#4 Hop like a Bunny

#5 Walk like a Rabbit

#6 Pose like a Crane

#7 Add Sound Effects (for younger children)

Add sound effects to an animal move; this could be the sound the animal makes or collectively mimicking their habitat's noise. Be imaginative. For example, if you have a voice-activated device like Siri or Google Assistant you can ask questions like “what does a lion sound like?”, or “what does a bear sound like?”, to have it play the sound of a lion or bear.

#8 Animal Move Timer

Choose an animal move from above and see how long you can perform it while another uses a stopwatch to time it:

for instance, how long can you balance pose on one leg like a crane? Try it with one eye closed, and then with both eyes closed. How does it affect the time and your balance ability?
time how long it will take to Crab Walk from one place to another
how long will it take to Bunny Hop from one room to another? Race against the clock and create other challenges.

RELATED: What Are The Benefits of Animal Move Exercises?

#9 Move More with a Deck of Playing Cards

♣ Clubs ♦ Diamonds ♥ Hearts ♠ Spades

Take any full deck of cards and assign an activity to each suit in the pack.

For example,

for the ♥ Hearts choose a vigorous cardiovascular activity like sprinting on the spot;
choose a strength exercise such as push-ups to be as hard as a diamond ♦;
select bodyweight squats for the spades ♠;
try a balance exercise, such as the Crane Pose for the Clubs ♣.

Pick one or more cards and proceed to MOVE using the numbering scheme below.

2-9; the number of exercises to do matches the number on the card or the time in seconds to perform the activity (i.e., 2 of hearts equals two seconds of sprinting, 4 of spades equals four squats.)
Ace is the equivalent of one repetition.
A picture card (jack = 11, queen = 12 and king = 13) repetitions.
The jokers are wild, meaning you should pick a random activity and number.

Just a Piece of Trivia: if you count up the numerical value of a pack of cards as above—you reach 364, with the addition of one for each joker in the pack that totals 366, the number of days we had in the year 2020. That might keep the kids occupied doing all that counting. :-)

If you are interested in playing a fun, fitness card game with a variety of exercises for kids or adults check out the Primal Play Animal Moves Deck range of cards, movement fun for all ages.

#10 Caricature Karaoke

A karaoke party is excellent if you love music and singing. A karaoke party's central theme is taking the spotlight and belting out your favourite song lyrics. But with this version, it doesn't matter about your voice. Focus more on impersonating the artist's motion when singing rather than mimicking the voice. Exaggerate their movement, become a caricature of the artist.

#11 Family Dance Off

Have a family dance competition, pick your favourite tune, choose a style of dance, and go for it. Be prepared to embarrass the kids when you do this.

#12 Headphones On

Have a silent disco (otherwise known as a headphone party). Listen to music with headphones on at low volume and have a boogie. Get other family members to guess what song you are dancing to.

This is a lot of fun! 😄

RELATED: Checklist for Daily Movement

CLAPPING GAMES

"A sailor went to sea sea sea;
to see what he could see see see;
but all that he could see see see;
was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea."

Clapping games have been a popular form of children's play for generations. Remember those clapping games we played as kids? Between the silly lyrics and the fast-paced sequence of claps and taps, spins and high-fives—clapping games provided hours of entertainment.

"If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!"

It might have seemed like merely fun and games, but there was more to it. Clapping games are beneficial to children's development, hand-clapping rhymes and songs are linked to cognitive skills - better at spelling, better overall writing skills, and neater handwriting. A study by Dr Idit Sulkin, of the Ben-Gurion University Music Science Lab, determined that:

“These activities serve as a developmental platform to enhance children's needs — emotional, sociological, physiological, and cognitive. It's a transition stage that leads them to the next phases of growing up."

#13 Be Teacher

Adults recall a clapping game you played as children and see if you can remember the accompanying songs. Then once you've refreshed tour memory - teach it to the kids.

Kids if you currently play clapping games (or did when you were younger), try and teach the adults how to play one such game. Go as fast as you can to increase the coordination challenge and show them how it should be done.

#14 Create Your Own

Why not try creating your own family clapping game? A similar exercise to this is a Primal Play movement snack called Shoulder-Knee-Toe-Heel Tap that certainly challenges in terms of coordination. Give it a whirl and try out even longer sequences and combinations to stimulate the mind and body.

RELATED: Shoulder, Knee, Toe, Heel Game

MIX IT UP

#15 New Room, New Move

Decide in advance on an activity for each room of your house. For example:

select a squat for the living room,
a push-up for the bedroom,
a kangaroo jump for the kitchen, etc.

Every time you enter a room, do one or two repetitions of the assigned movement snack.

RELATED: Try The Dog Limp!

FITNESS FOR HEALTH

When you do movement activities with your kids, take advantage of this time to talk about fitness and health. Here are a few pointers and discussion points to get you started (#16 - #22), you might learn a thing or two as well.

#16 What are the benefits of movement for children?

Physical activity strengthens a child's muscles and bones, prevents excessive weight gain, and reduces the risk of chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer later in life.

Physical activity is beneficial for mental and emotional health too. When we move our body, we move our mind. Physical activity allows children to have a better outlook on life by developing confidence, managing anxiety and depression, and enhancing self-esteem and cognitive skills. Research suggests that increased physical activity may help prevent and treat childhood depression.

One study in the journal Paediatrics concluded that moderate-to-vigorous physical activity at ages 6 and 8 are linked to fewer symptoms of depression two years later.

#17 What Is Your Favourite Active Game?

In this activity, get your children to air their views about their favourite physical activities and games. But rather than just having a chat about it perform it with them too! Let them coach, and you enjoy being the student. The only mandate it has to be fun.

#18 Why Do We Feel Better After Moving?

Tell your children how activity makes you feel happy and energetic and that it helps you live a longer more fulfilling life. Read here to learn more about play and the feel-good hormones such as serotonin and endorphins.

#19 Why Does Your Heart Beat Faster?

When you are exercising, your muscles need extra oxygen and energy from your food. The idea of aerobic exercise is to get your heart pumping faster, strengthening your heart and lungs, making them better at supplying the energy you need.

Teach the children how to check their pulse to test their heart rate before and after activity.

#20 Why Can You Get Out Of Breath and Sweat After Running?

You start to breathe faster to get extra oxygen in, and your heart starts breathing faster to pump more oxygen to your cells.

#21 Why do we sweat when we get active?

All that extra blood pumping and muscles moving starts to warm you up - so you may start sweating to cool you down. Try the Bear Crawl Tag game on for size.

#22 Muscles and Bones

Your body moves the way it does thanks to your brain, muscles and over 200 bones. Your brain sends signals to your muscles to do what you want. The muscles pull on the bones to move them into the right position. It all happens so fast you don't need to think about what each muscle is doing.

Even standing still without falling uses lots of muscles but more intensity with movement uses them more. Select different activities and discuss what muscles and bones are used to perform the actions.

What muscles are engaged during a Primal Play Tug of War for example?

RELATED: Benefits of Balance Training

ADVENTURE

#23 Treasure Hunt

Hide an object and provide activity clues for your kids to find the treasure. For younger kids draw pictures, for older children write out the words.

Maybe they need to crawl behind the sofa, slither like a snake under the bed, jump over a cushion, or if they're outside, piggyback someone to be tall enough to reach for something, jump off a rock, climb up a tree, balance walk along a wall, etc.

#24 Activity Charades

Instead of miming out movies, books or TV shows. Have your kids act out physical activities or Animal Moves instead (without any sound) and see if their family members can guess what they are. Make the acting as vivid and as vigorous as possible to burn even more calories.

#25 Simon Says

The options for movement with this game are endless. Simon says jump like a kangaroo, stand on one leg or walk like a crab. And remember, everyone should get an opportunity to be Simon, as well.

#26 Primal Play Tag

Do you remember the chasing game of your youth? Here is a tag version that can be played indoors or outdoors that doesn't require much room. Tag isn’t just a game for kids, there are benefits of the game tag for adults too!

#27 Healthy Housework

Housework on a list of fun activities? Now I know no one likes doing the housework, but let's try to make it less of a chore and something your kids are more likely to want to do long term. I know it's a stretch (pun unintentional) but stay with me:

Put on your favourite playlist and choreograph a dance whilst making the bed;
use a broom as your virtual dance partner and bend, lunge and lean with it;
mop the floor by standing on two wet cloths and moving your legs in straight lines back and forth. It may not be the most efficient way to clean the floor, but it's a heck of a lot more enjoyable!

#28 Ritual Activities

Turn your daily tasks into fun fitness activities. For example:

instead of sleepwalking to the bathroom in the morning, hop there like a rabbit.
While brushing your teeth, all stand on one leg, like a family of flamingos.
While preparing lunch, play some music you loved as a teenager and dance as if "no one is watching." A kitchen disco for one or more.

Some of these activities will undoubtedly prove fun for the family, and you'll probably roll about on the floor in floods of laughter. Laughter has many benefits.

VIRTUAL ACTIVITIES

#29 Virtual Simon Says

A simplistic version would mirror each other's movement playing a virtual version of Simon Says.

Or you could go for something more challenging, for example, try playing a 2-person Primal Play Tag game online. Spend some time figuring out how you determine how you get tagged this way!

#30. Virtual Rollercoaster

Disney World's YouTube Channel offers virtual roller coaster rides. They are incredibly realistic too as they have been shot in the perspective of first-person sometimes as if sat in the first seat of the ride.

Make it feel even more lifelike, get the kids to sit in cardboard boxes or on the floor and pretend to be on the journey. Shift side-to-side and up and down as you ride on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World in Orlando, Florida or any of the other selections available in this playlist.

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There are over thirty activities listed to get moving at home. Use these to spawn other ideas once you try some of these at home. Children are a resourceful lot, get them involved in the creative process of establishing fun ways of doing mundane things. I hope these activities will also provide some hilarity during difficult times. Let me know how you get on.

Of course, this all takes concerted effort, but when you think it isn't worth it take a look at your children's smiling, cheeky faces as they have fun. It’ll be worth it.

If you'd like more game ideas and have the Animal Moves Fitness Deck for Kids or Juniors, check out the Junior Fitness Games and Activities companion book. It contains over 70 games that can be used indoors or outdoors exclusively with the fitness decks.