Indoor Activities for Grades 1–2

Indoor Activities for Grades 1–2

Here are some rainy day recess games for the lower primary grades.

1. Memory Games

Kids love testing their memories with colorful cards and cute pictures! Let your students exercise their memory skills by playing matching games.

2. Musical Games

Try out a game of musical chairs with your students, or play Hot Potato, a similar game of listening for the music to stop. Have your students pass a “potato” — maybe an eraser or ball — around in a circle until you stop the music. Whoever is left holding the potato is out! You can also add a rule that anyone who drops the potato is out.

3. Movement Games

Are you willing to turn all four corners of your classroom into a playground space? Introduce your kids to Four Corners. Use paper and markers to assign each corner of your classroom a number. Then choose one child to be “it.” That child stands at the center of the room with their eyes closed, counting down loudly from 10.

When they reach zero, they choose a corner, and everyone in that corner is out! Anyone not standing in a corner is also out. This is a great game to play to encourage quiet movement since kids will try to creep silently from corner to corner to avoid giving away their positions.

4. Kid-Created Games

Would a ring toss be fun, just not in the blinding rain? You can have your students create their own equipment by coloring paper plates, decorating them with stickers, and then cutting out the centers to form rings. Have your students toss their rings at soda bottles or hot-glue paper towel tubes to cardboard squares to form targets. For an added challenge, assign numerical values to the rings and posts and have your students use math facts to see who can get the most points.

5. Personal Toys

How often do students get to play with their own toys at school? Break the rules on purpose at indoor recess. Something familiar from home can provide a novel dose of fun in the middle of the school day.