This is part 4 of the Indoor Games for Kids article series.
See part 1.
Games Played With Paper And Pencil
There are also a number of different games that can be played using paper and pencil which are great for keeping kids occupied and entertained indoors on a rainy day.
Tic Tac Toe
A simple childhood game that you can play with your child or that siblings can play with each other.
To play, all you have to do is make a grid of 9 sections on a piece of paper.
Each player takes a turn, one placing X’s and the other placing O’s onto the grid.
The object of the game is to get three X’s or O’s in a row (up and down, side to side or diagonally).
Hangman
This is another simple childhood game that’s played on paper by two or more people.
In this game, the starting player draws a hangman’s noose.
They then think of a word and draw blank lines below the hangman for each letter in the word.
All the other players then take turns guessing letters they think are in the word.
Each time someone guesses a correct letter, it’s placed in the appropriate blank.
Each time a letter is guessed that’s not in the word, the player who knows the word draws one part of a hanging stick figure.
The idea is to fill in all the letters of the word before the complete stick figure is drawn.
When we play, our stick figure includes a head, 2 arms, 2 hands, a body, 2 legs, 2 feet, 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth. to make it real interesting!
Find The Word
This is a great game to play with slightly older children who are reading and writing reasonably well.
Think of a name, word or phrase (we always used the names of Presidents) and write that at the top of a piece of paper.
Then try and make as many words as possible using the only the letters in the name, word or phrase.
If a letter appears only once in the the name, word or phrase you’ve chosen, then it can only be used once in any word that you make.
Multiple letters can be used as many times as they appear in the name, word or phrase.