Tips and tools for keeping kids active indoors. This post will save your sanity with a houseful of kids in the winter! Try this spider web obstacle course for free indoor active fun for littles!
Kids have so much energy!!! Keeping kids active is one of the easiest ways to keep them out of trouble.
I am a huge advocate for making sure kids spend time outside, but sometimes they need to be indoors – especially if, like us, you don’t have a yard. We had a huge yard in Massachusetts, but even there I found that having toys that would keep the kids active indoors was helpful, especially during long cold winters.
Today I am highlighting two indoor gross motor toys that make keeping kids active indoors both easy and fun. You won’t need any power drills for these gross motor toys – they fit into your home when and where you have the space for them, without using screws or any other permanent attachments.
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Keeping Kids Active Indoors: The Best Gross Motor Toys for Kids
What You'll Find on This Page
Our three-bedroom condo was designed for a couple of professors who maybe had one child but were probably using one bedroom as an office and the other as a spare room. We have done a lot of creative adjusting to make the space family-friendly. The master bedroom is ENORMOUS, with a walk-in closet and then two sinks taking up precious square footage. I had always been frustrated by this waste of space, but it turns out that it is the perfect place to install a Gorilla Gym!
What Is a Gorilla Gym?
The Gorilla Gym swing gets the most use in our home, but we cycle all of the other attachments through as well. The ladder is very popular, along with the trapeze. The kids find the knotted rope challenging, but they still ask for it pretty frequently. The red rings are least popular, probably because my kids don’t have the upper body strength they require – yet! They are getting stronger every day thanks to this toy! All of the attachments are stored in a net bag. A carabiner system makes it easy to swap out attachments.
This toy attaches very securely to a standard door frame using a clamping system. It can hold up to 300 pounds! Mike does pull-ups on it, and I have been on the swing several times – it is solid!
Quadro Construction Kit: An Indoor Climbing Toy
This build-your-own climbing toy is another incredibly durable gross motor toy. The packaging actually shows an ELEPHANT standing on it! We bought our Quadro Construction Kit back when Lily was a newborn – nearly seven years ago! At the time, one-year-old Johnny was climbing EVERYTHING – his high chair, the book case, the table… You name it, he had climbed it or tried to climb it. My mom suggested buying something he was supposed to climb. Raising ten children taught her a lot about meeting children’s needs, and this tip saved my sanity.
One thing that makes this climbing toy different from others is that you can build it, play with it, take it apart, put it away, then pull it out and build something new. This is particularly wonderful if you (like us) have limited living space.
The Quadro Construction Kit is even more awesome now that my kids can design and build on their own! The kit comes with several different designs; you can also make up your own. The kids get a great workout playing. Building is also a great workout – both physically and intellectually since it requires some serious visual spatial thinking.
How do you keep kids active indoors? Do you have a favorite gross motor toy – indoor or outdoor – that you recommend?
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Our family thing to do indoors is play board games and card games! Our current favorite is the Sorry card game. It’s a fun alternative to the board game.
No, but I want those toys now. I might share them with the kids…
They are awesome. I swing all the time.
Our basement is empty and we let the kids kick balls inside. They use a variety of soccer balls, volleyballs, and swords for active play. We also have an indoor tennis net which is fun for soccer tennis. We probably got the most use out of gymnastics mats though. We have two and they are constantly used for games like building forts as well as wrestling.
We have four lightweight gymnastics mats from IKEA, and the kids LOVE them. I had a basement like yours as a teenager, and we loved playing with balls down there. Maybe someday I will live in a house that is big enough for my children to have that kind of freedom…
Both you and your mum are so clever! I love the swing!!!
The swing is amazing!
It’s impressive that you found ways to keep your four kids active in small space!