Easy Indoor gross motor activities for preschoolers at home to get your little zombies off of the screen, and polish their gross motor skills.

Maybe the weather outside is too hot, too cold, rainy or maybe your kids have been stuck inside because of the virus. Their energy is at an all-time high and they are bouncing off of the walls. This list of indoor gross motor activities for preschoolers is so we moms have a go-to resource for when we know they have had enough! screen time and we need to engage them in some fun indoor movement games.
(You can even use these ideas as indoor gross motor activities for preschool and kindergarten kids in the classroom or if you’re babysitting.)
Fun Active Indoor Games For Preschoolers
You can increase or decrease the difficulty level of each game by adding or removing steps or putting conditions like they can use only one leg, or complete a task within a set time period and so on…
Also, these are very low prep fun exercise games for kids. Here is a list of supplies you will need for all the games combined. There is nothing that you already don’t have around the house.
- Markers
- Lots of loose paper sheets
- Paper cups
- Tape
- Toilet paper rolls
- Ball
- Badminton, stick, hockey, bat or toy golf club (anything your child can take a shot with)
- Colors
- Sticky notes
- Spoons
- Beans
- Pillows, cushions, boxes or anything to make obstacle course games and trails with
Now, let’s jump into our list of active indoor activities for preschoolers and I will start with our favorite active indoor games for preschoolers that include learning before we move to the games.
Indoor Gross Motor Activities For Preschoolers Learning Math & Literacy
The first four games below include numbers and colors but you can easily swap numbers with letters in the first three games depending on what your child is working on these days.
Similarly, you can swap the colors in the color scavenger hunt game with alphabets or numbers.
1. One-Legged Trail Crossing (Number Recognition Game)
This Math number game (click HERE to read the detailed post) and the next two indoor gross motor activities for preschoolers can also be used by teachers as fun fitness games for kindergarten kids working on their number recognition, sequencing, and counting.

2. Toilet Paper Roll Indoor Golf (Number Sequence Game)
This is one of the easiest games with toilet paper roll that includes both learning and movement. Click the link above for the complete post.

3. Throw The Ball (Counting Practice Game)
This activity tired my son very well when he had to pick up the balls a hundred times before he could correctly toss balls in the cups.

Read more about the step by step setup of our number practice movement game here.
4. Color Scavenger Hunt
The color scavenger hunt game can keep your little ones busy for the longest time.
It is a good activity for teaching your children about colors.
Simply take 12 sticky notes. Using a different color for each, draw a circle on each sticky note. Then stick them all in a line on the wall close to the floor. Ask your child to go around the house and bring a matching object for each of the colors and place it below each matching sticky note.
Once they have found a color, you can cross off that colored circle on the sticky note.
5. Spoon Race
This is a quick go-to and works best if you have more than one kiddos bored at home. All you need is a small ball and spoons.
You can make it as simple or as challenging as your children can handle.

The easy one
The children have to carry the spoons in their mouths while balancing the balls and take them without dropping from a starting point to the far end of the room. If your kids are very small, give them plastic spoons that are lighter to grip in the mouth and lightweight balls like a table tennis ball.
The difficult one
Make your spoon race complex by placing bowls on the two ends of the room and pour beans inside one bowl. We will swap balls with beans.
Your children can scoop beans from one bowl using the spoon in their mouth and take as many beans as possible within a limited time to the other bowl. The child with most beans in their bowl at the end of x minutes wins.
Kids usually like to repeat the game they enjoyed and my son wants to play this again and again until he has won a great many times.
6. Balloon Badminton
If we want lots of instant laughter and exercise, play this game. My son and I have played balloon badminton since he was 3 and could barely take a good shot with his badminton.
The challenge is not to let the balloon drop on the floor as you toss it between one another.
If you don’t have badminton right now, even a balloon and your legs (or head) will do. We sometimes play by kicking the balloon and no one is allowed to touch it with their hands.
The one who drops the ballon on the floor on their turn loses a score.
To add extra fun, have a simple scoreboard with the names of both the players. Draw a sad smiley face every time a player drops the balloon.

Play it till your child likes and when the game ends, calculate who won. The player with more sad faces loses.
7. Various Obstacle Courses
You can create obstacles that require different kinds of movement activities such as:
- jumping across,
- crawling through,
- walking or balancing on something
Use any of the following household items or a mix of more than one obstacle kind using different items to go from one place to another
- Tape trail to follow
- Pillow towers to climb
- Pillow or cushion tracks and the floor is lava
- Paper cups or Ikea bowls lined up in a row, and they have to cross in a zig-zag
- Empty cardboard boxes to jump across
- Chairs or tables to crawl through
More Gross Motor Activities?
See how to make your own Football Maze!

Enjoy these Indoor Physical Activities For 3-5 Year Olds
I hope you enjoy our exercise themed activities for preschool-aged kids when everyone is stuck inside the house. If you try any of these and add your better ideas, do share in the comments below so we can all learn.
Really appreciate your content , my little brother now has some more activities to play.
Thanks for the valuable knowledge. You have make the article so easy to read and it’s easy to understand. Keep sharing good work.
Thanks!