Indoor Play

This book presents 75 simple, playful and on-point interventions that combines mindfulness, expressive arts and play to help kids achieve greater self-regulation, focus more and stress less.

This book contains an array of games for every kid that will keep them entertained for hours. Most games are designed to play alone, with a parent, or with a group.

From building basic models and mazes to constructing complex stairs and bridges, box and block activities ignite children’s imaginations and engage their creativity and critical thinking. This book is full of small group and individual activities that explore construction, collaborative play, and basic math concepts.

This book is geared toward preschoolers, but the lessons can be enjoyed by all ages. Activities range from drawing to painting and printmaking using materials such as balloons and lace.

Teaches parents techniques for interactive play, exercise, and massage to do with babies based on massage therapy, karaoke singalongs, games, and exercise routines.

This one-of-a-kind series gives childhood providers and parents direct access to a comprehensive care approach from renowned child specialist Beverly Kovach, certified Montessori trainer Emmi Pikler, and Resources for Infant Educators (RIE). Series includes expert advice on play with infants.

This practical, hands-on resource encourages you to incorporate boisterous physical play into every day and offers concrete advice on how to create spaces for safe play, how to effectively work big body movement into children’s daily schedule, and how to use physical play to make teaching practice more dynamic and effective.

Parents and children will have a blast with the fun, varied games and projects in this book — activities that align with key areas of child development and include step-by-step instructions, strategies, and suggestions for parents of children with special needs.

This book provides 100 games, activities, and exercises that parents can do with their baby to foster cognitive, motor, and language skills and shows parents how they can use daily caregiving routines such as feeding, diapering, dressing, bathing, and bedtime as opportunities for play, positive emotional attachment, and learning.

Based on a sequence of play activities that are rooted in neuroscience, Theraplay offers a fun and easy way for parents and children to connect.

Messy play is one of the great joys of early childhood. Recipes for Messy Play uses 40 fun, open-ended, and creative recipes for children that can be used both in the early childhood education setting and at home.

This book contains easy and inexpensive ideas for engaging a child’s senses. It’s a book for parents and teachers – or anyone with a child in their life – who want to encourage tactile learning but don’t want their lives to be controlled by chaos.

Screen-Free Fun offers over 400 ideas to disconnect from tech devices and reconnect with our families in a healthier way. This book has 400 ways to have fun as a family: DIY projects, outdoor adventures, easy daytrips, etc. are all examples of possible activities in this book.

This fun-filled introduction to arts and crafts features easy-to-follow instructions and easy-to-find materials that will help you and your child have as much fun creating art as viewing the finished product. Series includes The Budding Chef, The Budding Builder, etc.

This book provides activities that will help you support curiosity, play, exploration, persistence, emerging foundations in literacy and math, problem solving, and so much more!

Schwartz has children with special needs in mind as she suggests ways parents can use suggested toys to encourage communication skills. The book includes chapters specific to the child’s age.

With activities that use everyday household materials and require only 5 minutes or less to prepare, this book makes it simple and fast for parents to turn a moment of idleness into playful learning.

This book explains heuristic learning–discovery by trial and error–and how to encourage this type of learning to boost development. Teachers will learn how to set up treasure baskets that encourage heuristic play: containers filled with easy-to-find items that support explorations in emergent language, math, and science skills.

This article is available for free on NAEYC’s website and offers an evidence-based approach to sharing information with parents and families about the importance of play in learning and development.

This video shares a variety of easy to put together play activities for toddlers using common household objects.

Simple, fun activities using common household items to play with your 16 month baby that help to develop hand-eye coordination, balance, fine motor, and memory skills.  There is a whole series of videos by Pathways with Baby Games for all different ages.

This series, the Magic of Everyday Moments, shows how babies develop through play. Play is how children test their ideas and learn new skills.

This post offers 10 indoor activities that help boost key areas of development while having fun with young children.

Through play, children are learning about the world around them, practicing talking and listening as well as finding out how to make friends and get along with others.

Games help make movement fun. Play and laughter can help develop friendship while encouraging physical fitness. Consider each child’s abilities, and encourage all children to play by adapting games for children with special needs.

Parents can provide interesting situations and objects to encourage a blind baby’s exploration and play.

Play is vital for children’s physical health as well as their mental health and cognitive development. This booklet provides ideas for many ways for families to play indoors.

Young children are learning that sometimes, sharing toys and supplies is not helpful. Adults can support them with simple explanations, visual supports, and practice.

For young children, developing a strong foundation of basic math concepts is easier when their families join in too, finding fun and creative ways to slip little math-related lessons and challenges into everyday activities.

This site provides information on toys, games, reading readiness, music, and activities for young children.

It has been said that play is children’s work. Children work hard at their play because they can make it up themselves. The best part about children’s play is that they learn a great deal while having fun. Here are some things to keep in mind about play.