Indoor Recess Activities Teaching Resources

Do you need indoor recess ideas to take the stress out of those days when rain or extreme heat keep the kids indoors at playtime? This teacher-created collection of activities, games and more is ready to save the (rainy/hot) day!

From active games that give students a way to get their wiggles out in small indoor spaces to tower building challenges, drawing activities and crafts, there's something for every year level in primary school and an option to fit every kind of student!

And we didn't stop there! Read on for some indoor recess ideas from our teacher team!

Our Favourite Indoor Recess Ideas for Teachers

The wind is howling. The rain is falling. And you have a bunch of kids who are bouncing off the walls. What do you do when the kids are stuck indoors?

Explore this collection of activities, and peruse this list from our teacher team, of course!

1. Create a Board Game Centre — Ask classroom parents, friends and neighbours if they have extra board games that they no longer use to build a board game centre in your classroom where students can use on those days when it's too hot or wet to go out for recess. The advantage of filling your centre with used board games is that you lose a lot less when pieces go missing! One member of our teacher team suggests putting all game pieces in large zipper plastic bags so when board game boxes start to fall apart it's easier to keep all those small pieces together.
2. Build a Drawing Station — Print out some of our 'How to Draw' pages, add some pencils and blank paper, and you have a quiet space for the kids who like to spend their time learning how to draw new things. Did we mention drawing is meditative for many kids?
3. Create a Tournamentt — Are you a chess or checkers player? If the weather indicates that recess will be indoors for a while, why not teach your students to play and issue a tournament challenge to pass the time day after day?
4. Turn to YouTube — Find a favourite (educational) show on YouTube that students can watch together. There are some great science-based shows that even we enjoy watching as teachers!
5. Play Bin Basketball. Have students ball up pieces of paper for a trivia game of bin basketball. Check our site for trivia questions you can use, or create your own. Each time a student answers a trivia question correctly, they get to attempt to make a basket in your classroom rubbish bin.
6. Create a Giant Scissors, Paper, Rock Game. Set students up in a circle, and select one student to go around the circle and play each student. When they lose, they take the seat of whoever beat them. that person continues playing around the circle until they lose. The first person back to their seat wins the game.
7. Create a Class Drum Circle. Want to incorporate some movement into the day? Aside from the active games in this collection, we suggest a class drum circle using their desks!
8. Make Indoor Recess Bags. There's something extra exciting about bringing a toy from home, so why not lean into that excitement for indoor recess? Send parents a note asking them to create small plastic zipper bags with (quiet) toys that students are allowed to bring to school and store in their desk or cubbies to play with on indoor recess days.
9. Set Up STEM Stations. Give your students a chance to stretch their STEM muscles with engineering challenges on the days they can't head outside.