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Indoor Activities For Children With Sensory Needs

Looking for some fun indoor acttivites for children with sensory needs? Well, look no further because in this post we dive deep into many different kinds of sensory activites! So put on your game face. Have fun, be silly, expend excess energy in a positive way.These activites are great for improving gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination – A win-win situation!. You can make them no-winners so you have no tears; it’s all about playing the game, not keeping score.

Indoor Tennis

Who says you can’t play tennis inside without breaking anything? With a paper plate tennis racket and a ballon ball, she’s not likely to cause any harm in the house. If you prefer, use a lightweight toy tennis racket instead of a paper plate.

A cool variation to this game is that your child with sensory needs could also bat the ballon around with the cardboard cylinder from a roll of wrapping paper or aluminum foil, or a plastic bat. Once you’ve tried these out, why don’t you and your child make up your own game!

Bonus fun:

Set the mood for silly – have your child use markers to give the balloon a funny face before she starts whacking it .

A balancing act

In this indoor game you will see how far your child can walk with a bag of rice or a bean bag balanced on his head. What happens when he does this while also holding a spoon with a ping pong ball on it? If he walks backwards? sideways? on a bed? Make up your own variations. He’ll love the goofy challenges and you’ll enjoy watching him have fun while his vestibular function (balance) and proprioception (sense of muscle and joint movements) improve.

It’s a toss-up – a beanbag toss-up

This is a great indoor game for children with sensory needs. Hand over some beanbags for your child to toss into a bucket or shoebox from near or far, depending on her level of coordination and skill. For a variation you can place the buckets one to the left and one to the right and have your child use the same hand for a pre-set number of tosses in a row, then switch hands (for example, 5 tosses in a row using the left hand into the left bucket, then 5 tosses using the right hand into the right bucket. Or he can alternate hands for each toss.

Old faithfuls: traditional playground fames make great breaks

Here are a few suggestions:

The Hokey Pokey
Going to Kentucky
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
London Bridge is Falling Down
Follow the Leader
Freeze
Red Light Green Light
Ring Around a Rosie Variation: After you play “Ring Around a Rosie” the original way, do something different for each round – for example, you can try singing the song very fast and moving very fast; very slowly; very loudly; very quietly; walking backwards (but probably not singing backwards!); jumping; tiptoeing; etc.

How about a round of applause for clapping games?

On the website ice breaker ideas, they have a post explaining different hand clapping games explaining the clapping games listed below:

Patty Cake Song
Double, Double
Miss Marry Mack
Miss Suzie (had a steamboat)
Long Legged Sailor
A Sailor Went to Sea
Lemonade Crunchy Ice
Charlie Brown
Apples on a Stick
Down, Down, Baby (Roller Coaster)
ABC
Nobody Likes Me

You probably (at least partially) remember some of these from your own childhood!

More oldies but goodies

Some of these indoor games work better if there are more people playing (enlist other family members?), and some can be adapted for two people taking turns:

Musical chairs
Twister
Hide and seek
Simon says
Hot potato
Variation: Start out by sitting or standing very close together so you’re handing the ‘hot potato’ to each other. With each round, move a little farther away from each other. After a few rounds you’ll need to toss the ‘potato’ and catch it, which is exciting and extra-helpful for working on hand-eye coordination.

Games you probably never heard of

Sometimes you’re all in the mood to play something different – here are a few less-familiar games to try out:

What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? Here’s a game from down under – instructions at https://childhood101.com/games-for-kids-how-to-play-whats-the-time-mr-wolf/

Captain’s Orders

Another unusual multi-person game from the same source: https://childhood101.com/games-for-kids-how-to-play-captains-orders/

Here are a few more kid-pleasers.

Parachute
You and your child(ren) hold the corners of an unfolded bedsheet and bounce an inflatable ball or stuffed toy on top of it. You’ll need to work well together to keep it from falling off..

The floor is lava The floor is lava (also known as hot lava) is a game in which players pretend that the floor or ground is made of lava (or any other lethal substance, such as acid or quicksand). Players must avoid touching the ground, as touching the ground would “kill” them. The aim is to get safely across the room, or to various specified places, using the furniture or any other surface rather than the floor. If the dying-in-hot-lava premise would be disturbing to your child, the floor can be the ocean and the players must avoid touching it so they don’t fall in (Tip: for extra giggles, grab a spray bottle or plant mister and lightly mist anyone who “falls in”) – If your furniture is too widely spaced for your child to navigate without “falling in” to the lava or water, you can put a few hand or bath towel “islands” on the floor – Instead of executing separate challenges, you can play rounds where the players must remain in motion, constantly moving from one “safe” place to another

Flashlight tag

You’re it! Who’s up for vigorous game of flashlight tag? Lie on your backs in a darkened room and move your lights quickly around on the ceiling and walls, chasing each other’s beams.

We hope you enjoyed these indoor activities for children with sensory needs. Feel free to share or quote from this blog (with attribution, please, and if possible, a link), and to repost on social media.

All the best,
Miriam

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