64 Fun Things to Do with Sick Kids at Home

Being sick is generally no fun – arguably the most boring few days of a kid’s life – but there are things that you can do with sick kids at home to make the experience a little more bearable. Here at Fun Attic, we try to make even the most boring situations fun!

What to do with sick kids at home? Some of our favorites are: put on a play, create your family tree, teach them to knit/sew, read or listen to podcasts together, or DIY a bird feeder. 

We separated this guide in 2 parts – indoors and outdoors. So read on for more!

Indoor Activities For Sick Kids At Home

Whether your kid(s) have a sore throat, cough, runny nose, stomach bug, etc. (it’s most likely a combination of these), doing simple, distracting activities together can help them forget their symptoms. After seeing the pediatrician, drinking lots of fluids, and pulling out the humidifier, the best medicine might just be having some fun.

Growing up, I got strep throat a lot, but my mom and siblings were always great about making the experience as great as it could be. These are some of the things we used to do, as well as some new ideas!

1. Board Games

One of the easiest and most versatile forms of couple or group entertainment of our times, board games address all people of all ages and interests. If you reserved a few Saturdays a month for board game nights with your friends, you know how fun things can be. Select the best and most fun board games to play in the family. Play competitive ones or collaborative ones. Go into complex strategies if you have to keep up the pace with your older kids (who probably play these games better than you) or select age-specific games to allow the little ones to shine.

2. Play Games to Enhance Literacy Skills

When was the last time you played Scrabble? How is your vocabulary these days? If you want to keep your kids entertained while improving their literacy skills, we recommend you reserve a sick day for Scrabble, Super Sleuth, or Boggle. We also recommend Dixit – it may not tap into word creation per se, but it does prompt the use of words in connection to image processing. Such games boost kids’ storytelling skills, jog their memory, and foster the use of imagination.

3. Play Games to Enhance Math Skills

Ah, Math, and helping kids with their homework… Well, if you want to make Math fun for them (and for you), an assorted platter of Equate, Tri-Facta, or Math War may turn the daunting Math into something fun, relatable, and enjoyable. You can take advantage of this entire situation to polish your own calculus skills and help kids understand things in a smoother, funnier way. After all, learning through play is the best way of learning!

4. Puzzle Games

In the same vein of playing and developing cognitive skills, patience, and many other abilities, puzzle games are the best way to spend this social isolation period in an entertaining and educational manner. Puzzles are great for any age, and they provide a relaxed environment for sick kids to enjoy healing.

5. Card Games

Being sick is a great opportunity to hone your skill with card games. You can play all the good old-fashioned classic card games like Slapjack or Crazy Eights. Better yet, you can take things up a notch and consider trading card games like Magic the Gathering. Sure, Explosive Kittens is a party game for teenagers and adults, but you can order online any card game that everybody wants to try.

6. Legos

You saw this coming, didn’t you? The kids in your home already have a few Lego sets and hundreds of pieces (you mostly step on), so setting up a “Lego session” for all the sick kids at home to enjoy should be a breeze. The destruction/cleanup process is also an educational activity.

7. Playdoh

Play-Doh is an all time favorite, especially for younger kids who are into arts and crafts. The creative potential is endless, and you can always order more supplies to pass the isolation time with flying colors!

8. Make Some Slime at Home!

Some of the best science experiments for kids to perform at home include fun putty and making slime. You have countless options to make slime at home. The basic ingredients for slime or fun putty are glue, borax, water, a bowl, and a mixing tool. Food coloring and glitter also help 🙂

9. Pen and Paper Role Playing Games

All you need is a good storyteller and the basic books, rules, and sheets of pen and paper RPGs. Download all the materials online if you don’t have the means to buy books and beginner kits. You can try some Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and make a story long and intricate enough to keep the entire family entertained for weeks if not months.

The longer the campaign, the better the quests, the thicker the plot, and the most developed characters you will enjoy. There are many such RPG games requiring pens and papers, and you should try a few to engage the entire family in a magical atmosphere where everybody is a hero. The campaigns can continue long after this crisis is over, too.

10. Cosplay Contest

A druid, an elf, and a superhero enter a living room… Speaking of role playing games, don’t hold back! If you are going to spend a few weeks saving princesses, learning wisdom from witches, and battling monsters, you should immerse in the atmosphere completely. So dress up like the characters you play every time you start a new session with the Dungeon Master.

If you are all into Comic Con, geek stuff, and superhero action movies, nobody can stop you from improvising costumes with items you already have in the house and organize a veritable costume contest. Enact favorite scenes from comics, TV shows, or movies, have the other family members play along (or act as “cosplay jury”) and turn dress-up into an act of art!

11. Painting

Think watercolors, crayons, painting by numbers, contouring, color splashing, the works. It may be messy, but it is also fun and educational. If you have small kids that love drawing or using colors, make room in the kitchen and let them play to their strengths.

12. Pebble Art

Painting rocks is a fun past time that costs $0 (besides the paint, if you don’t already have some). Make sure the pebbles/rocks are clean (for safety, wash them in the bathroom and make sure you remove all dirt, debris, or mold). Choose river stones with flat smooth surfaces if you can and let the little ones paint faces, butterflies, flowers, etc. Organize an art exhibit once they finish their projects and put the best pieces on display for everybody to see.

13. Face Painting

When you do face painting once, your kids will be crazy about it forever. They will love transforming into a beautiful princess, a giraffe, or a troll. If you’re going to be home sick, doing it as a fun creature is sure to raise spirits. And, it’s a great creative outlet for them to learn to do themselves.

14. Theater Play

If your kids are into role-playing and dream of becoming stage superstars at the school annual play, offer them the chance to impress you.  Allow them to select a story and stage a play for you. This will keep them busy preparing the decors, lines, screenplay, fight scenes, make up, and even official invites to the premiere. Theater play in the living room with their parents and siblings as the enthusiastic public can help the little ones overcome stage fright, own their personalities, discover new abilities, and, who knows, make some career plans! The older ones can even learn how to sew their own costumes and use the face painting skills to become their characters.

15. Hide-and-Seek

There is no better way to pay tribute to childhood than a serious game of Hide-and-Seek in the apartment. It’s a perfect mix of entertaining but not too physically demanding on sick kids at home. Everyone will love it, and you will have the chance to remember those incredible times in childhood when life was about fun and play.

16. Charades

When was the last time you played Charades with your adult friends? Well, it’s time to polish your skills and teach the kids. Charades, just like Mafia, make some of the best campfire games for adults (and society games in general), but you can adapt them to younger ages as well.

17. Build an Indoor Fort / Teepee

Building an indoor fort is the most fun thing to do on a sick day at home. An activity that engages as many or few people as needed, the fort will become a home inside the home that can host a wide range of activities.

• Consider bed sheets, the couch, chairs, hiking poles, tent sticks, pillows, blankets, and anything else you can find in the house.
• Embellish the fort with Christmas lights and gather the houseplants around the teepee for a more exotic, jungle look.
• Add pillows and blankets inside, a lamp that does not generate too much heat, a tray for drinks and snacks, and so on.
• Building the fort is a fun activity in and out of itself, but is also a useful one, as the new “construction” can generate plenty of new ideas about what to do indoors during the lockdown.

18. Story Time

Sick days are a great opportunity to get cozy with an engaging story. It’ll be meaningful quality time, and it will help kids still get education in despite missing school. You can take turns reading and also take turns having each kid pick a story. Combine activities and read in your fort!

19. The Bookathon for Older Kids

When older kids are sick at home for more than a day or so, you probably don’t want them spending the whole time on the phone or TV. Have them pick a book and go get it for them! Incentivize them if needed.

20. Camp Inside the House

Camping inside the house is one of the best indoor activities to do with the kids. You can summon all the magic of a normal camping trip without the cold air making illness worse. You can set up the tent, some glow stars on the ceiling, roast smores over a burner, and tell ghost stories. It will create some wonderful memories!

21. Living Room Picnic

If organizing a camping day in the living room seems a bit too complicated, turn things down a notch and organize a picnic. It’s very easy and allows you to trigger your kids’ imagination and interior design skills.

You know you can make an educational and fun moment out of anything, right?

Place a duvet or a mattress on the floor, cover it with some blankets (green if you have, to mimic the green pastures of the picnic park), and add pillows for comfort. Finger foods, grilled chicken, lemonade, and other picnic-oriented dishes, light nature music in the background, and you have the lunchtime activity for sick kids at home!

22. Cook with the Kids

Cooking is a crucial independent life skill we should teach all our children from the youngest of ages. You can buy a set of kids tools, or limit their help to what’s age-appropriate. And make sure to put chicken noodle soup on the meal list!

Because they’re sick, you’ll probably only want them to eat the food they prepare, but that might make it even more special. For once, they have food that’s just theirs.

23. Bake a Cake with the Kids

Since you will be making their favorite cake, why not engage them in the process? It is going to get messier and messier as time goes by, but it will be the best cake or pie any one of you have ever tasted. And, if you’re planning a picnic in the living room, you can’t skip desert!

24. Decorate Some Cupcakes

This activity requires some planning on your part, but you can get the kids involved with no problems. Do you know those tons of videos on how to decorate cupcakes in the craziest, most adorable ways possible? Pick a few and test them in your own kitchen. Your helpful and skilled sous-chefs can mix the colors in the frostings or be responsible for sprinkling the cupcake decorations over the freshly baked goodies. This activity is as messy as painting in the kitchen, but the results will be gorgeous, delicious, and memorable.

25. Organize a Movie Night

Of course, everybody watches movies and TV shows today, but offering your kids (and yourself) a true cinema experience in the comfort of your living room is another thing. Now that you baked and decorated cupcakes, all you need to do is pop some corn, a tray of refreshments, and a movie everybody wants to see!

26. Organize a Drive-In Cinema Experience

Parents can sit on the couch. However, the kids can come to the drive-in cinema in the latest model of cardboard car you can build together. All you need is a large cardboard box, scissors, tape, and markers. Cut out the box to resemble a car, draw handles, decorate it, tape it together, and have the little ones experience a joyful way of watching a movie. Did we mention that building the car together plays into the kid’s imagination and craft skills? Take the opportunity to teach a lesson about cars in general if you have a penchant for them!

27. Magic Carpet Ride

One of the most loved means of indoor transportation for little children is on daddy’s back or shoulders. However, how about mommy and daddy putting the kids on a carpet and dragging the carpet around the house? Consider this some sort of sleigh ride on the floor with a speck of Aladdin’s magic. According to some of the parents we know, this is one of the best and most fun things to do with kids – sick or not.

28. Create Your Family Tree

Print a sheet, add some family photos, discover connections, reminisce, and even teach kids a few things about genetics. A trip down memory lane is a comforting exercise for adults as well. Gather materials and take the opportunity to call some family members you haven’t spoken to in a while to ask for information. Your kids will love this activity, as it will reveal more about who they are. If you have some fun or exciting family stories to tell, this is the right time!

29. Create a Family Album

In the tech-savvy world we live in, we almost forgot we, the adults, still have tons of printed photos in albums, envelopes, and boxes. Many kids today, used to smartphones and computers, have little knowledge of what classic photography was. Take an afternoon or more to put together a family album, talk about the people in the photos, reminisce about the moments captured by the camera, and bring the family closer by sharing memories.

30. Teach Kids Photography

If you know your way with a camera – digital or otherwise – one of the best and most fun things to do with sick kids at home is to teach them everything you know about photography. Since children nowadays are all in favor of hi-tech, start taking photos with your phones and work your way up to DSLR settings, point of view, light, distances, focus, and more. As they grow older, your children will appreciate you for teaching them a useful and timeless skill.

31. Treasure Hunt

Write the clues on pieces of paper, hide them in the house in various places, and send the kids from one room to the next in the search for the great prize. A good indoor treasure hunt should end with the discovery of an exciting “treasure”, be it a fresh cake for everybody to share or a new game to play.

32. Scavenger Hunt

Naturally, the best scavenger hunts take place outdoors, but we have a few scavenger hunt ideas you can adapt to the indoor environment as well. Such activities are fantastic ways to shake off boredom, ignite kids’ imagination and cognitive skills, and even challenge you to become creative.

33. Listen to Some Fun and Educational Podcast Together

You might want to retain an educational atmosphere, even when your kids are pulled out of school for a sick day. One of the best ways to engage children in a learning session in a fun, relaxed, and playful method is to listen to educational podcasts together. Many come with teaching resources, downloadable material, and attractive presentations adapted to all kids’ ages and interests. Here is a list of podcasts for children to inspire you, but remember that you will find dozens of such ideas online. Just pick the best topics for your children and enrich your knowledge together!

34. Visit Online Museums

During the Covid lockdown, some famous museums in the world offer free virtual tours of their collections. Many of these free virtual tours are still available, or you can find tons of similar options on YouTube. It is an amazing opportunity for children and adults alike, as seeing the Louvre or the Hermitage with your own eyes or other great museums of the world is costly. You can spoil yourself and the kids with virtual tours of places you might have never dreamed of visiting in person.

35. Visit Other Interesting Sites Online

The truth is nothing beats the experience of visiting a national park, a museum, an amusement park, or a haunted house in person, but sick kids at home don’t have that luxury. Here is a list of fun and free places to see online. Take this opportunity to make notes on places and things you might want to visit during your future vacations.

36. Make Invisible Ink

Yet another fun science experiment for kids to do at home, making invisible ink is fascinating even for adults. If you get things right, save a batch of ink for the next activity on this list!

37. Organize a Mystery Solving Party

Consider this a hybrid between a treasure hunt and a theme party. Everybody loves a solid whodunit mystery, so take your time and check out this guide on how to throw a detective-themed party. You can have everything ready for when the rest of the family gets home, or you can plan it out for a few weeks from now, to give everyone time to recover from sickness, and to have the opportunity to invite friends and extended family. The invisible ink you already made comes in handy here.

38. Organize a DIY Music Concert

If one or some of your family members plays an instrument, you are all set. However, if you want to have some fun together (trying not to terribly disturb your neighbors), organize a music concert with “home” instruments you can find in the kitchen, such as spoons, pans, pots, lids, and more. You might want to wear some earplugs and make sure your neighbors do not complain (if you live in an apartment). If you live in a house, unleash the rock stars in your kids and put on a concert for the ages!

39. Build a Robot

You can start building a robot out of cardboard boxes and other items in the house, or you can take things up a notch and help the kids build one with Arduino boards and robot-building kits. The ones coming with technological backup will most likely move around the house for the enjoyment of the entire family.

40. Watch Online Tutorials

Are your children showing interest in a certain topic or skill? Do they have drawing skills or writing skills or anything like that? Good, because you can watch tutorials together.

41. Make Your Family’s Comic Book

It is one thing to read a comic book and quite another to create one! If one family member draws well and another is a natural-born storyteller, you can all engage in the creation of your family’s comic book. Daily adventures, mom and dad superheroes, your faithful furry pet companion (that now can finally speak), your favorite comic book villain and you have plenty of work on your plate!

42. Create Your Family’s Newspaper / Magazine

Is the creation of a comic book a bit too complicated? Challenge the children to put up the weekly family magazine. It can include drawings and photo collages, interviews with the parents and grandparents, the recipe of the week, the latest news, a top of last week’s favorite activities, suggestions for new activities for the next days, and more. It is a creative, educational, and quite challenging activity for children who show an interest in storytelling, journalism, and visual arts. Keep these magazines, as they will put a smile on your face and some tears in your eyes when you all grow older.

43. Learn Magic

From card tricks to quirky attention diversion tricks, you and your kids can become true wizards and witches in the comfort of your home. You can learn magic yourself just to entertain the kids while you are stuck at home, or you can all learn something and practice together. We don’t recommend you replicate some of David Copperfield’s or Houdini’s more dangerous acts, but living room magic will make the little ones feel at Hogwarts.

44. House of Cards Contests

You play cards and you learn magic tricks with cards, so why wouldn’t you organize from time to time a house of cards contest? The one family member building the tallest and most complex house of cards that does not fall wins a prize!

45. Grow a Plant from Seed

You can spend the sick day learning about plant growth and planting seeds. Look for plants you can grow from seeds of fruits or vegetables you already have in the house. One of the easiest plants to grow is beans – all it takes is a bean, some gauze, and a cup of water.

However, for more elaborate balcony-gardening projects, you can grow a lemon tree from the seeds of a lemon you have in the fridge. Teaching children about growing plants and caring for them is important and useful. If you want to mix fun with utility, start growing herbs and spices. From chili peppers to parsley, thyme, or basil, you can grow almost all scented herbs you use from your kitchen, windowsill, balcony. Take the game up a notch and recycle some items in the house to turn them into plant pots! How about turning an old pair of boots into a pot for plants?

46. Play the Recycle/Upcycle Game

While school teaches our children a lot of useful things, the formal academic environment misses out on teaching them some life notions and abilities. They become the parents’ responsibility. How to live sustainable lives is a lesson we can teach at home. Teaching kids to recycle and upcycle regular household items is one of the most useful skills they will benefit from in the future. So, for this particular life lesson, you need broken or old objects, items that might surely end up in the trash bin, and stuff around the house you want to repurpose. It is a healthy and lucrative exercise for children and adults alike.

47. Learn Napkin Folding

As arts and crafts go, folding napkins in more ways than the traditional triangle is a skill for the ages, especially for those family members who take cooking, plating, and fine dining seriously. There are countless online tutorials teaching you how to turn the common napkin into a work of art, so use them and learn something new!

48. Teach Kids How to Knit

If you know how to knit, try teaching your kids too! It may not be a life or survival skill, but it is fun and useful nonetheless. More than learning how to make a sweater or a winter scarf, knitting teaches people patience and understanding patterns. It is a calming activity that keeps the mind focused but relaxed. It also develops fine motor skills and attention to detail. You could all learn how to knit and challenge yourselves to make something wearable by the time you go back to school/work!

49. Teach Kids How to Sew

Now this is a skill that people need for their adult independent lives! You can start easy, teaching kids how to sew buttons and make knots and stitches, fix a seam, or patch a hole. If you have a sewing machine in the house, you can make the lessons more complex, teaching boys and girls how to fix zippers, upcycle old clothes into new ones, and even make clothes to wear.

50. Home Yoga for Kids

Kids have a lot of energy, even when sick sometimes, and being stuck in the house does not help at all. Why don’t you try some yoga lessons in the living room together with the children? Yoga helps everybody understand mindfulness, relax, stretch a little, and unwind. It’s a great way to get them moving their sick bodies without overdoing it. All you need is a mat (or just carpeted floor) and some videos.

Outdoor Activities For Sick Kids At Home

Fresh air can do wonders for a sick child’s immune system. If you have a backyard to play in, take advantage of it!

Of course, outdoor play should be reserved for only mild illnesses and colds. Maybe not so smart for fever and/or vomiting!

Let’s put our creative caps on and see other entertaining activities we can do outside with the sick kids without leaving the premises and spreading germs!

51. Outdoor Games

Obviously, you don’t want to have sick kids wasting all of their physical strength on soccer, but getting them to move their bodies a little bit outside can be beneficial for their healing. You probably want to stay away from tag games, but circle games are the perfect option, if you have multiple sick kids at home. You can also pull ideas from our article: 12 Cheap But Exciting Outdoor Game Ideas for Kids.

52. Fairy Garden Scavenger Hunt

This is a two-part activity, starting with a backyard scavenger hunt. This time, challenge the kids to find items they can use for a fairy garden: pebbles, plants, flowers, decorations, scraps, etc. Creating it with them will be a fun memory, and they can continue to play with/add to their fairy garden even after they recover from the flu!

53. Build a Bird Feeder

Did you see that pandemic viral picture of a picnic table built for a squirrel? Yes, the quarantine showed that people have no limits when it comes to creativity. However, if woodworking for squirrels does not appeal to you, how about building some bird feeders for the feathered friends visiting your property? Watching the birds come eat from it will keep them entertained all day.

54. Hopscotch on the Porch or Driveway

For a second, we thought of including hopscotch as an indoor activity, but your neighbors downstairs would not agree with us or with you. So we moved hopscotch into the outdoor category. You can use chalk, lawn-friendly spray paint, or painter’s tape to build your hopscotch arena. Don’t let your sick kiddos overdo it, but they’ll love playing!

55. Make a Volcano!

Learn how to make a DIY volcano as a home science experiment for kids of all ages. The older ones interested in science and chemistry in particular will have a field day with this! The back yard or the house porch is ideal for this fun and educational activity.

56. Pinata Party

You can build a pinata using cardboard, paper mâché, colored tissues, a clay pot, and more. Fill it with treats and toys, put on some fun music (on a decent volume as you don’t want to disturb the neighbors), have a snack, and hit that pinata for a fun little party you will all remember!

57. Bird Watching

What you need for this relaxed and educational back yard activity with the kids is a blanket and the best pair of binoculars for bird watching and nature observations. If you want to turn this game into an educational moment, take some notebooks and pens, write down all the birds you see, make a sheet for each of them, take their photo if you can, and learn some biology between two laughs.

58. Flying Drones

As long as you do not disturb your neighbors and you do not invade anyone’s privacy, you and the kids can play with the drone and have a unique view on things around the house or neighborhood. Some drones for beginners have excellent flying potential, but if you have one with field-of-view camera and first-person view transmission, make sure you don’t break any laws!

59. Backyard Mini-Golf

You and your sick kids can work on your mini golf skills in between resting with some DIY magic. As long as you have golf clubs and balls, you’ll just need to find something to aim for – plastic cups work great!

60. Astronomy and Star Gazing

Using a telescope for kids is a great way to teach them science, open their minds about the universe, and challenge them to discover the mysteries of the sky. There is not enough engaging science taught in school, so fix this problem by introducing the kids to one of the greatest questions of all times: what is out there?

61. Microscope Studies

Almost all of our sick day guide involves activities that don’t require any pre-planning, but this one probably does. You’ll have to buy a kids microscope before disaster strikes in order to make this a fun sick day activity.

If the kids in your family are science buffs, a microscope and a table in the back yard is all they need. Some kids started looking at the intricate microscopical construction of a leaf and ended up one of the brilliant doctors we praise today. Just like some love to look at the greatness above us and wonder about the outer space, others love to look at the tiniest building blocks of our existence and find answers there.

62. Ring Toss Game

This classic carnival game goes great in your back yard. You need some bottles, a crate, and some rings. Parents turn the game into a quick, fun Math lesson as they encourage the kids to keep their own scores.

63. DIY Outdoor Chess/Checkers Table

Let’s see how you can turn a game of chess or checkers into a fun outdoor activity with the sick children.

• • Find an old outdoor table you want to turn into a chessboard;
  • Fix it, paint it, and polish it nicely;
  • Paint the chessboard directly on the surface of the table;
  • Set the table on the porch and spend your sick days teaching and competing.

Refurbishing an entire table to meet your competitive needs is an outdoor activity that mixes craft with family fun. It is also a lucrative endeavor, as you will have this chess table for the years to come!

64. Recycle Bottle Bowling

Do you have some plastic water bottles around? A tennis ball lying around somewhere? The you are all set! You don’t need to craft a bowling set in wood or other materials when you can reuse plastic or even glass bottles. The tennis ball is not quite a bowling ball, but will do the trick nicely.

Bottom Line

This was our list of fun things to do with sick kids at home! Leave us a comment about which ideas are your favorite, and any other great ideas you’ve thought up!