20 play ideas for kids in quarantine
Being quarantined because of the Coronavirus is already difficult, but it can be worse for those who have to find a way to entertain their children at home. With so much energy, children can get bored easily and demand even more from their parents. Fortunately, there are several games for children in the quarantine that you can try.
We have separated some of the best known and fun ones. Our suggestion is to mix them up a little over the days so that the children don't get tired too. If you are curious to know what games for children in quarantine you should test, just check out our tips below!
1. Treasure hunt
To start our play list for children in quarantine, we have the treasure hunt. This is a simple game that can be fun for the whole family if planned in advance.
In it, you take some interesting objects and hide them around the house. Then, your children should look for these objects with clues that you have spread around the rooms, like a true search for treasure.
2. Cordless phone
Then we have a suggestion for a game that can be quite successful with the youngest children. The cordless phone consists of a person thinking about a phrase and whispering to the person next to them.
That person whispers what he has understood to the next person and continues until the message comes back to the person who created it. The goal is to try to make the sentence come back completely intact, which is almost impossible when someone understands it and passes it wrong to the next one.
3. Basketball hoop
Despite the name of the game, you don't need to have a basketball hoop at home to enjoy it. Just take any empty container, which can be a trash can or a cardboard box.
Then, make some balls (they can even be made of paper) and start a competition. Whoever hits more balls in the basket wins the round.
To make it more interesting, you can keep leaving the basket farther and farther away. In this way, the game becomes more challenging and fun.
4. Hide and seek
Also known as hide and seek, this is a great game for those who live in a bigger house or apartment. While most participants are hiding around the house, one of them is in a waiting room.
Then, the person left behind needs to meet everyone else at a certain time. It is one of the simplest games for children in quarantine, but very fun.
5. Stop
This game is well known and you may have played it at some point. In it, you receive a letter of the alphabet and you need to write the name of different things that start with that letter.
This can include a color, film, name, country, fruit, etc. Whoever can think of a word for each category before, says "Stop" and all participants need to stop writing.
In doing so, those who managed to write in more categories and those who did not repeat the word with other participants get more points. You can do this on a sheet of notebook or using specialized websites for internet gambling.
6. Gallows
Another old and cool game to try is the hangman game. In it, one person thinks of a word and the other needs to go on speaking letters that may exist in that word in question.
If the person hits a letter, it is placed in the position found in the word. If you make a mistake, a part of the human body is drawn under a gallows.
The goal is to try to guess the word before the human drawing is completed.
7. Chair dance
A great game to try when there are several children at home. Just place chairs in a circle in a room in the house and let the children pass by while a song plays.
When the music stops, each child must try to sit in a chair. The one that doesn't make it, stays out of the next round and this goes on until there is a champion left.
8. Tic-tac-toe
Another classic that you can try with children in quarantine is the tic-tac-toe game. It is very simple, can be played on the internet, on your smartphone or even on a sheet of paper.
One person simply chooses an “X” or an “O” to place it in one of the nine spaces available. Whoever makes a line first wins the round.
Because it is such a fast game, it can still be played several times in a row. A great way to spend time at home.
9. House of cards
If you have a deck at home, you can try to build a house of cards. There are countless ways to do this, but the idea is to create the entire structure of the castle by supporting the faces on each other.
A legal challenge is to let each family member place one card at a time. Whoever loses the card that knocks down the entire castle structure loses.
If you don't want to make it a competition, you can just try to build the castle yourself. In this way, the challenge will be the size they manage to leave the castle.
10. Image and action
Finally, we have a really cool game to enjoy with the whole family in quarantine. In this game, you separate some names of objects, foods, establishments, etc.
The player of the round takes one of these words and needs to draw the object while the others try to guess. There is a time limit for divination, the points being divided by whoever gets it right the fastest.
The person who draws also gets points based on the number of people who got their drawing right. You can do this with drawings on paper or using a website just for that.
11. Grab sticks
The Pega Varetas game needs the toy itself, so keep that in mind. This game consists of those colored sticks that are thrown on a surface at random, but together.
Each player must try to remove as many sticks as he can without making the others move. If one of them moves, it is the next player's turn.
Whoever finishes with the most sticks at the end wins the round. The game can be played several times and always ends up being challenging.
There are a few different versions too if you want to test. While in some versions, only the number of rods is counted, there are others where the colors are worth different points.
12. Dominoes
Another game for children in the quarantine is dominoes. If you have this game at home, it can be fun to experiment with your kids at home.
If they prefer, there are also versions online or in mobile games for smartphones. This may even get more attention from them in some situations.
13. Detective
A little different from the well-known board game, this game can be tried without many resources. Just cut some papers, write "detective" on one, "killer" on the other and leave the others blank.
Whoever takes out the killer in the draw must try to kill the other participants by winking at them. Whoever receives the wink, can only say that he died and give no hint as to who the murderer is.
The detective has to find out who he is and accuse the killer before he kills him or all of the participants. For the game to work better, it is recommended that the participants stay in a circle.
14. Colorful elephant
If you want a more interactive activity, you can try the colorful elephant game. In this game, one participant speaks a color and the others must run to touch an object of that color in the room they are in.
The one who can touch more objects of the right color during the various rounds wins. The cool thing is also to change who speaks the colors.
15. Wheel of stories
This is another of the good games for children in the quarantine that the whole family can participate. The goal is to tell a story, but each person who participates can only say one sentence at a time.
So, the next participant needs to complete it with another sentence and so it goes on. The cool thing is for everyone to sit in a circle in order for people to be very straight.
16. Bowling
If you have plastic bottles left at home, you can play bowling too. Just fit them into the right shape of the pins and get a ball to hit them.
You can use a rubber ball or an improvised paper. Activity can get even more creative if you want to customize the bottles to be more like bowling pins.
17. Undead
The Undead Game is very simple and you may have heard of it before. A person faces the other participants and needs to say "dead" or "alive".
When you say "dead", people need to get down, while when you say "alive", they need to get up. The pace at which words are spoken needs to increase and whoever misses the movement is removed from the game until only one is left.
19. Hot potato
The hot potato game can be a lot of fun too. Circle the participants and leave an outsider blindfolded or with his back to others.
Whoever is in the circle passes the hot potato to the others. Meanwhile, the blindfolded player will say "burned" and eliminate the participant who was holding the potato at the time.
You can use a real potato or any other object that is easy to pass from hand to hand.
20. Hot and cold
Finally, we have the game of hot and cold. In this game, someone hides some objects and the participant who is looking for him must close his eyes or sell them.
The person walks and the person who hides the objects says that it is "hot" when the person is closer or "cold" when he is farther away. With that, he must try to find the right object.
Another version of this game is having people hiding while someone searches for them. In this case, a person just stands outside and says if it's hot or cold.
Did you like the play ideas for children in quarantine?
Did you take advantage of our list to have some ideas of games for children in the quarantine? So don't forget to leave your comment telling us that you found the suggestions and which ones you will try in this period of seclusion.