Indoor Recess Activities Teaching Resources

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

From movement games that give students a way to get their wiggles out in small indoor spaces to coloring pages, drawing challenges and partner activities, there's something for every grade level in elementary and middle 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 Favorite Indoor Recess Ideas for Teachers

The wind is howling. The rain is falling. And you have a bunch of kids who are bouncing of the walls. What do you do when you've got recess duty, and 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 Center — Ask classroom parents, friends and neighbors if they have extra board games that they no longer use to build a board game center in your classroom where students can turn on thosedays when it's too cold or wet to go out for recess. The advantage of filling your center 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 Coloring Station — Print out coloring pages, add some crayons, and you have a quiet space for the kids who like to spend their recess quietly reflecting. Did we mention coloring is meditative for many kids?
3. Create a Tournament — 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 favorite (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 Trash-Ket Ball. Have students ball up pieces of paper for a trivia game of trash-ket ball. 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 trash can.
6. Create a Giant Rock, Paper, Scissors 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 movement 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 to the playground.
10. Indoor Snowball Fight. Throwing things in the classroom will never not excite kids. Roll up socks or pieces of paper for a simple snowball fight that won't make (too much of) a mess.