Top 6 Home-made Indoor Games

Play is our brain’s favourite way of learning. According to Maria Montessori, “Play is the work of childhood.” No doubt childhood is considered as the most beautiful & memorable time in our life.

PLAY is the combination of both mental and physical aspect which indeed helps in producing the best success stories. To have a health mind we need to have a healthy body and the best way to achieve is through play.

Play is rightly considered to be a ‘Mood Booster.’ When we play or do any physical activity, a hormone is secreted in the brain which is a mood booster. It takes 47 muscles to frown and 22 muscles to smile. So better smile and conserve our inbuilt energy.

We have restricted play to kids, infact play is the need of humans, be it of any age. Play makes you feel younger and who doesn’t want to be young?

Try remembering our childhood days. Our days of play, enjoyment & fun 😆Those evenings of outdoor plays, those nights dedicated to board games & cards. Our enthusiasm to complete our work before time so that we can play to the max.

Don’t you think it’s our responsibility to give the same to our young ones? Why we have loaded them with online gaming and social networking via gadgets? Why these extra activity classes, which kills majority of their time after school?

Children cannot bounce off the walls if we take away the wall.

Encourage your child to play & enjoy their childhood like you did. Studies have suggested that a child’s brain develops at a better rate when he/she plays games.

Now-a-days kids have no idea about the physical appearance of the board games, be it chess or ludo. All are taught to be played using gadgets. They don’t know about the joy of playing outdoors. The freshness of air, the climatic hurdles created by the ‘All Mighty’, the value of adjusting and co-operating with others.

Try to be creative and make these games more attractive and interesting for the kids so that they could be bought out of the ‘Gadget World.’

Unique Home-made games 

(Minimum players:2)

Word magic 

By introducing scrabble we have made them learn how to make new words out of letters. But have we ever thought them to make sentences using words? Here is one suggestion to do so. This game is similar to Scrabble; the only difference is on the tokens we are going to write words instead of letters. For variation you can use different languages.

Example: Decided to take 7 tokens.

Received tokens written with: 'cow, my, are, is, he, this, smart'

Result could be: 'This is my cow' or 'This is my smart cow'

You can increase the excitement by adding points on each token similar to Scrabble.

Name, Place, Animal, Thing

I am sure after reading this game name we have recollected our school days. This was the best way to utilize the small times we used to get between two lectures or break time.

But unfortunately we forgot to introduce it to our kids. Nothing much required just a paper, pen and a timer. Try it, your kids will love it.

Example: The letter is ‘A’

Player 1:

Name – Amit

Place – Aurangabad

Animal – Ant

Thing – Aeroplane

Player 2:

Name – Ashok

Place – Argentina

Animal – Ant

Thing – (Blank)

How do we score: Each player will call out what they have written. For every unique answer they get 10 points each, for similar ones they get 5 points each and for no answer zero.

Add up the total to get the final score.

Word Chain

Were in you are supposed to prepare a chain of words, not physically but mentally. You can choose any topic fruit name, mode of transport, simply names or it could be rarely used names like instruments used for gardening, etc. Topic is completely your mutual understanding.

Example: Topic chosen ‘Fruit Name’

Now we just have to name the fruits turn by turn, forming a chain. No beginning or ending letter to be considered.

Player 1: Says ‘Apple’

Player 2: Says ‘Apple-Banana’

Player 3: Says ‘Apple-Banana-Guava’

And it continues. Important thing to be remembered is to follow the same chain. If anyone breaks the chain in between he/she gets disqualified and we start with new chain.

Let’s laugh together

To play this a little hard word is required from your end. You have to prepare chits.

Set 1	Set 2	Set 3
I Like	Dancing	My mother
I Love	Playing	My father
I Enjoy	Eating	My grandparents
I Feel	Laughing	My sister
I Adore	Kissing	My  friends
I Use	Slapping	My neighbour
I Miss	Kicking	My cousin
I Wish	Hitting	My uncle
I Want	Scratching	My aunt
I Hope	Biting	My pet

Once you have prepared the chits, fold them and put each set of chits in a different container. Now ask the 1^st player to pick chit from each container and read out what new sentence they have made.

Example:

Set 1 chit: I wish

Set 2 chit: Kissing

Set 3 chit: My cousin

Result: I wish kissing my cousin.

Continue the same with other players as well. You can increase the humor by asking them to actually do the same. By this you can spend hours together laughing with your kids.

Other creative home-made games

We can easily make an Othello board or Connect 4 board at home. Chess board is also a good alternate to play the above games. Physical games like Freeze/ Statue can be easily played. Playing 1 minute games is always fun for kids. Kids can try their hand on bowling using empty cold drink bottles. Can indulge in art work like Rock Painting, Nail Painting, Making Tattoo, etc.

Can also try: 12 Lockdown Housie Variations – Trending

Benefits of playing games

1. In kids the energy level is very high so there is an urge to channelize it. The best is to make them physically active.
2. For kids winning is priority but they learn to digest failure as well.
3. Games are the best educator for many difficult concepts.
4. Play gives them a chance to practice what they are learning.
5. Play helps to reduce stress and enhance their mood.
6. Play leads to sound sleep.
7. Reduces the risk of obesity, which is a cause for many critical illnesses.
8. It results in overall development of the child be it personality, confidence, self sufficiency, socializing skills, observation, memory, focus....endless.

Games are the best educator in the ‘Art of Life.’ They help not only kids but also adults a break from the monotonous life.