Raising preschoolers means constantly seeking activities that keep them engaged, active, and developing essential skills. When the weather keeps you indoors, practicing gross motor skills becomes a challenge. Running, jumping, and tumbling are typically outdoor games. Luckily, there are plenty of indoor gross motor games for preschoolers that are designed to help young children build these skills behind closed doors.
In this article, you’ll learn about gross motor skills, their importance for young children, and how you can facilitate gross motor development at home. Plus, we’ve provided a list of 25 indoor gross motor games for preschoolers that are both fun and effective.
Bring Your Preschoolers to the Frontier!
It’s October, and that means Arkansas Frontier is open for families, school groups, and kiddos of all ages. Our interactive games like duck races, pumpkin picking, dinosaur digs, and gem mining are excellent gross motor skill activities. We also offer an educational adventure in our Frontier village and learn how our ancestors milked cows, wove rugs, or churned butter! We’ve got a one-room schoolhouse, a Native American Village, and much much more! Check our website for rates and opening hours!
What Are Gross Motor Skills?
While fine motor skills involve precise movements of fingers, tongues, or toes, Gross motor skills refer to the movement and coordination of large muscle groups, like those in the arms, legs, and torso. For preschoolers, these skills include walking, jumping, climbing, and running. Proper gross motor development is important for balance, strength, endurance, and coordination. It lays the foundation for more complex physical tasks they’ll face as they grow, such as riding a bike, participating in sports, or even handling everyday activities like getting dressed.
Encouraging children to practice these skills will not only support their physical development but will also improve their confidence and independence. The good news is that you don’t need fancy equipment or outdoor space to help them practice these skills—you can get creative indoors.
25 Indoor Gross Motor Games for Preschoolers
Indoor gross motor games for preschoolers don’t have to be expensive, intricate, or difficult to set up. You can often use furniture or household items for your indoor movement game. In fact, some of the simple games that small children are naturally drawn to (and have been for centuries,) like a balloon toss or pretending the floor is lava, are excellent gross motor activities.
Recess is arguably the most important subject in a preschool itinerary, given they learn best with hands-on play. Energetic kids need safe and fun ways to release that pinned-up adrenaline. These indoor educational games strike a balance between getting the wiggles out, increasing motor skills, and expanding the mind at the same time.
1. Balloon Toss
A favorite simple indoor game, a balloon toss works on several major muscle groups, and with the addition of a little music, can keep kiddos entertained for hours.
Skill: Hand-eye coordination, balance, arm strength
How to Play: Blow up a simple colored balloon. Instruct your child to keep the balloon from touching the ground. Encourage your child to hit the balloon with their hands, head, feet, and knees. You can add challenges like using only one hand or balancing on one leg while playing. Balloon toss is also a way to introduce colors as you add more balloons to the mix!
2. Simon Says
Another class game, Simon Says is a wonderful gross motor game. It allows you to control the activities and work on specific skills that your child needs to improve upon.
Skill: Body awareness, balance
How to Play: Give your child gross motor challenges such as “Simon says jump,” “Simon says crawl,” or “Simon says hop on one foot.” This games helps improve their listening skills while working on a variety of movements.
3. Animal Walks
Small children are obsessed with animals, and they often pretend to be dogs or cats on their own. Encourage this behavior and give it some guidance.
Skill: Coordination, strength, body control
How to Play: Pretend to be animals and move around the room accordingly. For example, walk like a bear (on hands and feet), slither like a snake, or hop like a frog. This game engages numerous muscle groups at once and enhances coordination. It’s also a chance to teach your toddler about new animals and their sounds and behavior.
4. Obstacle Course
There’s nothing more fun than an obstacle course when you’re stuck inside. By building a series of indoor games, you challenge your child to think on their feet and utilize every major muscle group in secession.
Skill: Balance, coordination, problem-solving
How to Play: Use household items like pillows, chairs, and blankets to create an indoor obstacle course. Have your child crawl under tables, jump over pillows, and weave around chairs, focusing on agility and balance. You can use hula hoops or Painters tape to make jumping circles on your floor. Lined-up couch cushions or pillows make great balance beams. You can also tie your children’s legs together for a three-legged race down the hallway. The options are endless!
5. Bean Bag Toss
Rember the Bozo Show, and the infamous ping pong ball toss? Turns out, the simple act of tossing one object into another is actually a fantastic indoor gross motor game for preschoolers!
Skill: Arm strength, hand-eye coordination
How to Play: Tossing bean bags into baskets or at a target on the wall improves precision and arm control. Vary the distance to adjust the difficulty. By changing the distance and difficulty of the toss, you also increase your child’s spatial awareness.
6. Hopscotch
If you have a wide kitchen space or a long hallway, old-timey Hopscotch is an excellent indoor game for preschoolers.
Skill: Jumping, balance, coordination
How to Play: Use painter’s tape to create a hopscotch board on the floor. Practice hopping on one foot, jumping with both feet, and following the sequence of numbers. It’s not only an effective gross motor game, but it’s also a learning game for small children that works on number recognition and counting.
Twist: To make it fun for small children, give your hopscotch board a theme. Have them pretend to be a leprechaun trying to get to the pot of gold at the end. You could also make the end of the road a castle for the princess or a hidey-hole for a troll. Use your imagination!
7. Freeze Dance
Freeze tag is a bit too insane for indoor play, but freeze dancing keeps the chaos contained!
Skill: Balance, coordination
How to Play: Play some fun music and have your child dance around. When the music stops, they must “freeze” in place. This game teaches balance and body control, especially if they freeze in challenging positions.
8. Jump Over the River
Jumping is not only a necessary gross motor skill, but it’s also a way to release energy. Called a proprioceptive skill, jumping teaches body awareness and applies deep pressure to the muscles, which can help children with sensory deficits or hyperactive disorders learn to safely release energy.
Skill: Jumping, leg strength
How to Play: Lay two ropes or strips of tape on the floor to represent a “river.” Encourage your child to jump over it, increasing the width of the river gradually to challenge their jumping distance.
9. Crawling Race
While most preschoolers have mastered crawling and moved on, gross motor activity that includes coordinated movement of the core and all four limbs is still necessary for further development.
Skill: Core strength, coordination
How to Play: Set up a crawling race in the living room or hallway. Make it more challenging by creating obstacles they need to crawl under or through. If you only have one preschooler, challenge them to a race with the stopwatch!
10. Balancing Act
Age-appropriate balance enables the child to tumble, run, and play with a smaller chance of injury. Static (still) and dynamic (in motion) balance are both important for further skills like riding a bike or climbing a tree and should be honed during the preschool years.
Skill: Balance, body control
How to Play: Use a strip of tape on the floor as a balance beam. Have your child walk along it, placing one foot directly in front of the other. You can increase the challenge by asking them to carry an object while balancing or by telling them not to look down at the “beam.”
11. Pillow Jump
Another easy game to improve balance, coordination, and deep pressure awareness, pillow jumping is easy to set up and will keep them entertained without spending a dime!
Skill: Leg strength, coordination
How to Play: Arrange pillows on the floor as stepping stones. Have your child jump from pillow to pillow without touching the floor. Vary the spacing to adjust the difficulty.
12. Red Light, Green Light
We all know this one. It’s a preschool staple! While you may have thought your teachers were just having fun or wasting time, they were actually teaching you vital gross motor skills!
Skill: Start-stop control, running, balance
How to Play: In this game, your child moves when you say “Green light” and stops when you say “Red light.” It helps them practice stopping quickly and controlling their movements.
13. Rolling Ball Chase
So, yeah. We are suggesting you play fetch with your child. But, we promise it’s for a good reason!
Skill: Running, coordination, spatial awareness
How to Play: Roll a ball across the room and ask your child to chase it, retrieve it, and bring it back. This game improves running and stopping while practicing hand-eye coordination when catching the ball. It also forces the child to be aware of their surroundings in order not to crash into the wall or furniture while chasing the ball.
14. Paper Plate Skating
Most moms forbid roller skates in the house. However, the act of skating or skiing is a fantastic muscle-training exercise for little ones.
Skill: Leg strength, balance, coordination
How to Play: Place a paper plate under each foot and let your child “skate” around on the carpet. This challenges their coordination and balance, mimicking ice skating.
15. Feather Blowing Race
Breath control is an essential skill that not only comes in handy for long-distance running and high-intensity sports later in life, but is a key skill for controlling anxiety and stress as well.
Skill: Breath control, hand-eye coordination, balance
How to Play: Give your child a feather and have them blow it across a table or floor, keeping it in the air as long as possible. You can set up a race to see who can blow their feather to the finish line the fastest. This simple game works on breath control and coordination while engaging their focus and balance as they move around.
16. Crab Walk Race
Walking like a crab is completely awkward and counterintuitive to normal human movement. Performing this skill takes concentration and muscle training.
Skill: Core strength, coordination, balance, flexibility
How to Play: Teach your child to walk like a crab, with their hands and feet on the ground and their belly facing up. Have a crab walk race to build strength in their arms, legs, and core.
17. Sock Basketball
Like the bean bag or ping-pong ball toss, playing sock basketball helps your child learn to judge distances, improves coordination, and teaches spatial awareness.
Skill: Hand-eye coordination, arm strength
How to Play: Use a laundry basket as a basketball hoop and rolled-up socks as the balls. Encourage your child to “shoot” the socks into the basket. Adjust the distance to make it more challenging. If your kid is a natural athlete and finds this too easy, begin to walk back and forth, forcing them to shoot into a moving target.
18. Tug of War
This rainy day activity is probably best for a preschool classroom or homeschool co-op.
Skill: Arm strength, coordination, teamwork
What to Focus On: Use a rope or long scarf for a game of tug of war. You can also play tug of war with a stuffed animal for a fun alternative. Focus on the constant backward movement of the feet while leaning slightly backward. This game builds strength in the legs, arms, and back while teaching teamwork.
19. Mirror Movements
If you’re looking for an educational activity for preschoolers that you can do together with your toddler, the mirror game is a great option. They’ll hone their listening and gross motor skills, and you’ll get a little exercise too! It’s a win-win.
Skill: Body awareness, balance, coordination
How to Play: Stand facing your child and ask them to mimic your movements as if they were your reflection in a mirror. Start with simple motions like raising one arm or hopping on one foot, then increase the complexity by adding spins, stretches, or balancing on tiptoes. This game develops body awareness and coordination as they learn to follow and mirror your movements exactly.
20. Laundry Basket Push
Heavy work is important for some toddlers, especially those with sensory disorders or tendencies toward hyperactivity. Heavy work is an umbrella term used by therapists to describe pushing, pulling, or carrying heavy objects…basically, any activity that provides resistance or deep muscle engagement.
Skill: Strength, coordination
How to Play: Let your child push a loaded laundry basket across the floor. This works their leg and arm muscles while improving coordination. You can pretend they’re pushing a shopping cart through the store, or delivering bricks on a construction site. You can also place toys inside and have them deliver items to different parts of the room like the Amazon delivery man.
21. Jumping Jacks Challenge
Long gone are the days of calisthenics at school. Teaching these coordination skills now solely falls on the parents.
Writer note: I was recently blindsided and quite frankly dumbfounded to find out that my 14 and 12-year-old niece and nephew had never learned to do a jumping jack. Though quite athletic, their attempts were uncoordinated and honestly hilarious. So, if you don’t want your child to look ridiculous trying to do a jumping jack at 12, teach them at 2.
Skill: Jumping, coordination, stamina
How to Play: Teach your child how to do jumping jacks by jumping and spreading their legs while raising their arms overhead, then returning to a standing position. Set a timer and see how many they can do in a minute. You can also do the challenge together to make it more fun. This activity builds stamina, coordination, and leg strength.
22. Indoor Bowling
If you have an empty room or long hallway, turn it into a bowling alley!
Skill: Arm strength, hand-eye coordination
What to Focus On: Set up plastic bottles or other lightweight items as pins, and use a soft ball to knock them over. This game helps with aiming and arm control.
23. Shape Jumping
This engaging indoor gross motor game works on leg strength, balance, and spatial awareness. It also teaches toddler shape recognition.
Skill: Jumping, coordination, balance
How to Play: Use tape to outline different shapes on the floor—such as circles, squares, and triangles. Have your child jump from one shape to another, calling out the name of each shape as they land on it. You can also challenge them to hop on one foot or jump to a specific shape.
24. Lava Floor
Reinvigorated by Netflix’s show The Floor is Lava, this age-old game is making a comeback!
Skill: Jumping, balance, spatial awareness
How to Play: Pretend the floor is lava and place pillows or mats around the room. Encourage your child to jump from one “safe” spot to another without touching the floor. This game boosts their spatial awareness and balance. Plus, it adds an element of suspense and imagination to their play.
25. Shadow Tag
If you’re a fun caregiver, who doesn’t mind a little running in the house, then shadow tag is a unique twist on an old favorite that works on multiple gross motor skills.
Skill: Coordination, running, balance
How to Play: In a well-lit room, play tag but focus on tagging each other’s shadow instead of physically touching each other. This encourages spatial awareness and body control while running.
Indoor Gross Motor Games for Preschoolers-Final Words
We hope this list of indoor gross motor games for preschoolers helped you see that training the body is an important part of a well-rounded education for young kids, but it can also be easy and cheap to do. With minimal effort and zero dollars, you can entertain your toddlers and preschoolers all day long.
By incorporating these fun, indoor gross motor activities into your routine, you’ll help your preschooler build essential motor skills while staying active and entertained on the rainy, cold days of fall and winter. Encouraging regular physical play in preschoolers will not only set them up for success with harder skills to come but also give them a healthy outlet for all that preschool energy.
Being trapped indoors is no fun, but it’s a great time to learn some basic life skills! Take a look at our article on “Basic Life Skills for Kids and Fun Ways to Teach Them.” It’s full of important life skills and effective methods to get your kids on board with learning!
Looking for preschool-appropriate Halloween ideas, check out our list of “Seven Fun Halloween Party Ideas for Preschoolers!”