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7 At-Home Recess Ideas that Kids & Parents Love

One of the things your kids are likely missing the most while learning from home is recess! After all, what can be more fun than running around outside and enjoying the school’s variety of great playground equipment? Creative parents have their own at-home recess ideas to keep their kids entertained — we’re featuring our favorite ones right here!

At Adventure World Play Sets, we craft high-quality vinyl playsets and swing sets that children all across the country enjoy. Our goal has always been to build the high-quality home playground equipment that rivals the quality and size of what you’d find at a park or school. If your kids are still learning from home at least some of the time, check out these at-home recess ideas — and explore our legendary playsets!

recreate recess at home

Great Ways to Recreate Recess at Home

While recess may not be an education essential like math or history, missing it entirely due to socially distanced learning feels like a wasted opportunity. You may have noticed that the kids have more pent-up energy and may not focus on their studies as well when skipping out on scheduled outdoor time. Our ideas to recreate recess at home work perfectly with one or two kids and are ideal for almost any backyard:

  1. Three Person Kickball — Bring the classic recess game to your backyard with a few simple tweaks. Set up impromptu bases around the yard and have one player on offense facing off against a pitcher and a fielder. After three outs, the positions rotate and someone new is on offense trying to score points!
  2. Sandbox Time — While only some elementary schools have sandboxes, this still earned a place on our list of at-home recess ideas. A sandbox is a great way for children to grow their imaginations by building structures out of sand and setting up entire pretend cities. While they can be bought on their own at plenty of toy stores, we include sandboxes as a playset accessory on some of our models.
  3. Redlight-Greenlight — Almost everyone has great memories of playing this game, and it’s a great inclusion when you recreate recess at home. While this game has a simple premise, it can be repeated for multiple afternoons of fun. Even better, you don’t need anything special to play this game, and any number of kids can play simultaneously.
  4. Track and Field Games — If your kids enjoy structured play (not to mention healthy competition), try hosting a family track and field meet while on break from their studies. Start simple with sprints and relay races and build onto it by adding events like discus (frisbee) throwing and long jumps. This is a way to recreate recess at home that rewards your creativity!
  5. Jump Rope — This is the perfect quick activity for letting out some excess energy. While basic jumping rope is fun enough, your kids will love learning more complicated games like Double Dutch! Simple and fun things like jumping rope and swinging on a swing set are surprisingly good exercise!
  6. Monkey in the Middle — Since you’ll often be playing along with the kids during your at-home recess, you’ll want a game that makes the height advantages of being an adult part of the challenge. Monkey in the middle is great for this! With the kids on either side of you, they pass a ball back and forth, working to keep it away from you for as long as possible.
  7. Play on Your Own Personal Backyard Playground — If you want to recreate recess at home — and even improve on it — one of our playsets should be perfect! We build a wide range of outdoor playsets that include slides, swings, towers, and countless accessories that kids love. This means that even though school may be out, the kids will still be able to enjoy swinging, playing on the monkey bars, and all of their other favorite activities right in their own backyard. Our sets come in a wide range of sizes — and some of our huge swing sets are even larger than what schools or parks offer!

Quality Construction and Imaginative Design

The two things that make Adventure World Play Sets stand out are the quality that goes into every set and the kid-focused designs. We build our playsets to excite young minds and inspire old-fashioned outdoor play — even in a world where electronics are everywhere. This starts with our eye-popping colors, exciting accessories, and a huge variety of designs!

From a practical standpoint, we know that parents care about safety more than anything. That’s why we aim to build the safest sets on the market. Firstly, since our sets are sheathed in vinyl, they’ll never start to rot and weaken. On top of that, our heavy-duty swing set beams are built tough enough to withstand 2,000 pounds of pressure — which is more than they’ll ever need!

Your New Playset: The Ultimate At-Home Recess Idea

new playset built for at-home recess

While there’s no question that all of these at-home recess ideas should provide hours of fun, a brand new playset takes the excitement to the next level. Nothing will get the kids off the couch and putting their phones down quite like a brand new set packed with fun and games. At Adventure World Play Sets, we sell our sets through our nationwide dealer network. The first step to bringing home your set is to enter your zip code below and find your nearest dealer. Your local dealer will help you find the perfect set for your yard — and give you a price to take care of everything!

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Our Google Reviews

The best swingset company, in my opinion! We are an independent contractor that works for a lot of companies. Adventure world swingsets are built very well. They will last more than one generation.
Jay Flaud
Jay Flaud
2023-01-14
Reasonable price, great warranty, well installed. Kids will love it1
John Lippert
John Lippert
2022-12-29
Amazing quality! Definitely worth the purchase since kids play all day on it!
Isabella Laris Logan
Isabella Laris Logan
2022-11-07
Just got a wonderful playset for our preschool. It is fantastic!! It has been an easy experience.
Bethany Brown
Bethany Brown
2022-07-28
Great quality playset. Arrived quickly. Installation and communication through J&R Mulch Waynesboro PA was excellent
Allison Hickman
Allison Hickman
2022-06-23
If you ever need a swingset installed in your backyard or anywhere, you MUST get it from here.
Steven Rice
Steven Rice
2022-01-25
We have been trying to purchase one of these play sets for months and none of the dealers in our area will call us back about purchasing one. I wish the purchasing process was easier than "find a vendor in your local area". No one here wants to build them! The Happy Hideout looks like an amazing product for my toddler to grow into. I'm sad no one will build them or call us back. Edit: The company contacted me personally and found a vendor in my area!
Charlotte Doty
Charlotte Doty
2022-01-19
Great people to work with and high quality! Highly recommend, my kids love their new play house!
Ashley McGinnis
Ashley McGinnis
2021-12-24