Six Apartment-Friendly, Indoor Kids’ Activities

Children love to play outside. Kids will be kids, and when required to play inside, it can be hard for them to understand that sound easily transmits through even the thickest of apartment walls and floors. Creating special indoor-friendly activities to stem boisterous behavior and keep noise levels down in consideration of others can be quite a challenge.

Here are our top six picks for quiet-time plans while enjoying Greystar apartment living with kids — and none of them resort to video games.

1. Consider purchasing puzzles for your kids and then providing a dedicated “puzzle table” or space to work on them. Having an off-and-on project like a large puzzle has the potential to keep your young ones entertained for hours a day for weeks, and their excitement will only grow as the picture grows closer to completion. Cutting up photos and gluing them on craft/popsicle sticks is a great way to create fun, personalized home-made puzzles.

2. Hide and seek is another fantastic indoor game for children to play. After all, the goal is to be as quiet and still as possible! Inevitably, kids will run out of unique places to hide in an apartment, so as an alternative to sneaking around, they can take turns hiding and finding a small toy.

3. As a variation of hide and seek, parents can create a list of small items, equip their children with a homemade map and basket and send them on a household scavenger hunt. Themed quests can have children seeking items of certain color, shape or size for hours of entertainment.

4. Puppet shows are always a favorite, especially with younger children. This idea can also supply bored hands with a fun craft as your kids create and decorate their puppets out of paper bags and worn-out socks. And don’t worry about not having a purpose-built puppet stage. By simply pulling the couch out and having your little puppeteers duck behind it, you’ll soon be entertained by the perfect puppet entertainment venue.

5. Fun, quiet activities don’t have to be complicated. By simply giving your child a large, empty cardboard box and a smattering of crayons, markers and other art supplies, their naturally-artistic imaginations will be entertained for hours on end.

6. Gather your spare sheets and blankets into the living room and encourage your little one’s imaginations to run wild while creating tents, forts and other structures.

Sometimes though, apartment recreation isn’t about being quiet. Certain Greystar communities, such as Bayou Reserve in Thibodaux, LA, feature outdoor activities such as sand volleyball and tennis and basketball courts, which will definitely appeal to older children. Daniel Island Village in Daniel Island, SC, offers younger kids an exciting outdoor time at the Tot Lot, a fun-filled playground facility. These amenities allow your children to let off pent-up steam without unduly disturbing neighbors around you.

Greystar community events can also be an ideal way to keep pre-teens entertained. The Retreat at Windermere in Muncie, IN, for instance, hosts events geared toward family fun, complete with face painting, bounce houses and other similarly-themed activities.

And if you’re fortunate enough to live in a community like Elan Brian Forest in Houston, TX, or The Bridges at Kendall Place in Miami, FL, your children can play in the Kid’s Club activity center while you get your workout on. A variety of games, toys and quiet things to do gets them out of the apartment for an hour or two while giving you the always-welcome chance to cross the gym off of your to-do list.