Hello, dad! Find yourself stuck inside every so often and looking for good father son activities to do with your son?
There are plenty of ideas and we have some good ones below that will help you bond with your son(s).
They’re separated into two sections for son under the age of 6 and over the age of 6.
Some below include screens, though most don’t. No one wants to end up with incredibly dry eyeballs from all day screen watching.
Indoor Father Son Activities for Sons Under Age 6
1. Play with Legos (or build a set!)
You can’t go wrong with playing with Legos (or something similar like Knex or Magnatiles). There’s endless possibilities when dumping a huge bucket of Legos on the floor and starting to build without a particular goal in mind.
Some of my best memories as a kid was when my dad spent time playing with Legos with me and really got into it. It’s one thing to watch someone build, but kids can feel it when we’re engaged and putting in the effort to enjoy it ourselves.
Depending on your son’s age, following a Lego set you can build together can also be a blast. I built an enormous castle set when I was young and spent tons of hours with my dad building a Knex ball machine (similar to this machine set) that was taller than I was at the time.
It was my favorite Christmas gift and my dad and I spent quite a few nights listening to music and building a contraption that took up a significant portion of my room. If you’re interested in Bible-based Lego sets, and Bible Builds has some super cool Lego sets and resources.
2. Lovevery Play Kits & Subscription Service
Lovevery play kits are designed to help develop kids’ brains and are for kids 0-4 years old. You put in your child’s age and can subscribe to have the boxes sent to you at regular intervals as your kids get older. It’s similar to Kiwi Co Boxes, except that they aren’t available for children older than 4 years old.
3. Kiwi Co Boxes (Ages 6 and under)
Kiwi Co Boxes are science and STEM boxes generally for kids from newborn to 16, but there are specific boxes for kids ages 0-2, 2-4, and 5-8. There are more boxes described below for older ages.
4. Camp in the backyard
Alright, it’s not technically in an indoor activity until you get the tent setup. And you might not make it the whole night but there’s something exciting for kids about the idea of sleeping outdoors.
Grab as many pillows as you can find, sleeping bags, and a book to read or something else to do by the light of a flashlight. Odds are your son won’t make it the whole night but it’s easy to just go back inside and it’ll make for a great memory.
5. Read a book series
Finding a book series your son likes can be an awesome way to bond over a story, especially when there’s multiple books you can go through.
You could make it a habit of reading to them (and/or them reading to you) before bed or another time if it’s just the two of you home at a certain time each week. Major bonus points and entertainment value if you can talk in different voices for each character.
6. Make paper boats and airplanes
There’s something more fun about DIY projects when you can use them afterward as toys. You can make paper boats with the right folds and paper airplanes to compete to see how far you can get each one to fly.
Both can be colored on or drawn on to have names titled on each vehicle. (We like “Good Dad Help Airlines” if you’re looking for a plane name.) There are instructions for paper boats and tons of paper plane making videos on YouTube.
7. DIY Science Projects (Make slime, an erupting volcano, or egg drop challenge)
There are tons of DIY science projects you can make with stuff you probably already have at home. Making slime seems to be all the rage recently. You can make a homemade volcano (here’s the tutorial) or go the basic route and put mentos in bottles of diet coke. Or see who can get the safest landing for an egg with a self-built contraption.
Here’s a list of 60 DIY science experiments you can choose from.
8. Make the living room a theater for movie day
Yes, kids love movies, but they’re much more exciting when you make your living room into a home theater. Drag a mattress or two into the living room and fill it with pillows or cushions, get an area set up with popcorn and drinks, and plan it out in advance to have a movie you can look forward to.
Indoor Father Son Activities for Sons Over Age 6
9. Build a model car (or other model)
Amazon has tons of options for model car kits that don’t require any special tools or prior knowledge of building things. And if your son isn’t that into cars, there’s a surprising amount of things that can be built in model sets.
You can find model boats, wooden puzzle models, or construction vehicles, to name a few. My brother loved model cars growing up and has now passed on the tradition in building model vehicles with his son. Find something your son would like to build and building a collection would be cool, but the time you spend together doing it will be even more valuable.
10. Crunchlab Boxes – Engineering and Science Boxes
Watching YouTube seems to be the new big thing for kids and TV is far less exciting than it used to be. If your son hasn’t already seen it, he might like Mark Rober’s YouTube channel, which is full of interesting builds from the former NASA and Apple engineer. (My favorite is the backyard squirrel maze.)
Nonetheless, Rober created Crunchlab Boxes, which is a monthly subscription box that sends you a toy with the goal of learning how to think like an engineer. It’s relatively inexpensive and you can see some of the toy examples.
11. KiwiCo – STEM, STEAM, and Science Boxes
KiwiCo’s goal is to inspire the next generation of innovators and they have a multitude of boxes to do it. There are nine subscription lines you can choose from for kids of different ages.
You can pause or cancel anytime and again, for the value kids can get out of it, they’re relatively inexpensive. Also a great way to build a monthly habit of having something to look forward to working on together.
12. Read the same book series together
Once your son is older, they might already have some books they’ve enjoyed and gravitated toward. The easiest route is to read books or genres with them that they already enjoy, but if you need more options: Harry Potter, Magic Tree House, or the Chronicles of Narnia are all classics. The Divergent Trilogy, Hunger Games, or Ready Player One are all page turners as well.
13. Play multiplayer video games
I know. Most of the time, you’re probably trying to get your son away from the screens and doing something else. If you even slightly enjoy video games yourself, joining in and playing a game together can be a great activity to bond over.
There are plenty of games that allow multiplayer like Fortnite, Minecraft, or Mario Kart and a lot of the time they actually get more fun with more players. It’s of course important to just focus on enjoying it, but the more you can get into it and actually get creative with things like your creations in Minecraft or your strategy in Fortnite, your son will absolutely notice.
14. Make a DIY laser maze with painters tape
Depending on how intense you make it, creating a laser maze with painters tape in a hallway of your home can be a huge challenge.
One by one, you tape streamers or painters tape from one side of a hallway to the other and make “laser” obstacles your son needs to navigate through while touching as few as possible. Add another piece of tape and make it longer if they make it through without touching any tape.
15. Make a floor is lava course
Everyone has pretended the floor is lava at some point as a child. It’s probably most common for kids to do it when you don’t want the house to be a mess, but if you embrace the mess and go for it with pillows everywhere and furniture rearranged, it can be a blast to see how far around the house you can make it in one trip without touching the floor.
16. Play minute-to-win-it games
After the tv show Minute to Win It came out, similar style games became super popular. Games like trying to get an Oreo from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands or rolling a quarter across a table into the prongs of a fork.
There are tons of games with different difficulties (you can find a video of them in Darell Nonis’ video and Family Education’s site) and they’re a great way to get away from phones with something engaging to compete over.
17. Do Ad-Libs
One of my favorite things growing up was filling out ad-lib books with my dad. What’s an ad-lib book, you ask? They’re books of short stories or paragraphs with words missing that you fill in on your own without knowing the context of the story or sentence.
One person reads out the type of word needed (adjective, noun, etc.) and writes down the word the other person gives. Then you read through the story after all the blank spaces are filled in and see what weird and funny sentences you get. I’ve laughed to the point of tears from ad-libs and think they’re an underrated activity. Here’s the Mad Lib brand I’d recommend.
Go do one!
The best indoor father son activity is the one you’ll actually do and enjoy most with your son. (Also we recommend giving magnetic toys like Magna Tiles a whirl!)
