So you’re quarantined with your kids. You’re working from home, and they’re home, too. You’re probably spending more hours per day with your kids than you ever have before without school, summer camps, and activities and sports. This can be stressful, but it’s also an awesome opportunity to get to know your kids even better and to create positive memories together.
Sure, you’ve seen all of the memes about stocking up on wine and what shows to binge, but there are many active things you can do with your kids while you’re all stuck together. Here are 10 to try while you practice social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus and COVID-19:
1. Cook together!
You just went out and stocked your shelves with staples and favorites, so you know you have a lot of ingredients in the house. Try these fun and easy recipes:
a. Rice Crispy Treats: For a quick no-bake sweet treat, just three ingredients: crisped rice cereal, marshmallows, butter.
b. Cookies: It’s fun to make cookies together! Try chocolate chip, peanut butter, or snickerdoodles for easy-pleasers.
c. Brownies: if you don’t have a brownie mix, you can still make brownies if you have a can of cocoa on your shelves.
d. Pancakes: event young kids can crack eggs and stir batter. Plus you can make fun shapes on your griddle, or put cooking oil in a deep frying pan and make funnel cakes!
2. Play games!
You know you have some board games and card games in your home! Haul them out for some play!
a. Classic games like Clue, Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Uno, Carcassone and Risk are fun for 3 or more people and for families together. Newer multi-player games like Munchkin and Fluxx are great, too!
b. Two-player games. Let the kids battle each other and maybe make a round-robin tournament or bracket for a super-winner in the family. Games like Connect Four, Scrabble, Battleship, Stratego and super-classics like checkers, chess, and Othello are good for this type of play.
c. Download and start a role-playing game campaign. You can join the Dungeons & Dragons™ fans by getting a PDF of the Player’s Handbook, and Monster Manual. You can expand and customize what world you play in or monsters you use by downloading add-on settings or bestiaries. There are also thousands of independent role-playing games that are suitable for kids, teens, and families.
d. Card games. If you have a deck of regular playing cards, there are many games you can play with your kids, or that the kids (depending on age) can play together. Time to teach or re-introduce War, Go Fish, Gin, Rummy, Blackjack, Poker, and more.
e. Video games. You may want to limit the amount of screen time your kids get daily to ensure they are taking breaks for their eyes and have time to be more active with their bodies. That said, video games can be a healthy part of playing together as a family. Look for multi-player games or host round-robin play where people take turns or challenge the winner.
3. Arts & Crafts!
Get your kids creating something, individually or together. Challenge them to build, make, design, draw, or sculpt. Here are some ideas:
a. Make quarantine collages based on a theme. This is useful if you have any physical magazines or newspapers, or you can challenge them to use multimedia with drawings, labels, paint, photos and other objects.
b. Draw — with a purpose. Get out the markers, colored pencils, crayons and paper. Let each child come up with a theme such as “nature” or “birds” or “cars” in turn that limits what each person can draw. Set a timer for 5 minutes and let each person draw something related to the theme. When the timer goes off, present to the group. Bonus: have children close their eyes and choose 3–5 markers before the drawing begins. These are the only colors that can be used in their drawing!
c. Got yarn or string? It’s time to teach finger-knitting, friendship bracelet making, and cat’s cradle.
d. Get out the Play-Doh® or sculpting clay. Vote on a scene such as “at the beach” or “at the park” or “in space”. Have the kids (and you if you’re playing) make objects that can be put together to create the scene. For example, for “at the beach,” kids might make towels, umbrellas, buckets, starfish, tiny bottles of sunscreen, a surfboard, a sailboat, lifeguard stand, etc.
4. Drama, Music, & Dance!
a. Use YouTube™ to find karaoke versions of songs and have a sing-a-long party with solos, duets, and choral performances.
b. Got a ukulele, djembe drum, tambourine? Get them out to accompany the singing and be part of a band. You can even make homemade maracas with rice, popcorn kernels, or lentils (uncooked) in a plastic egg, mason jar, water bottle, toilet paper tubes, etc. Some kids will want to record the performances to post online. It’s a thing.
c. Let your kids teach you a new dance. Trust me, they have many to choose from.
d. Put on family favorite music for a dance party to get out some pent-up energy.
e. Share music with your kids — you pick a song you love and they need to listen to it and then it’s their turn. Appreciate what they like in a song, even if it’s not your thing.
5. Make a Mural!
a. If you’ve got a chalkboard or whiteboard paint wall, turn it into a mural that everyone contributes to day by day.
b. Put up posterboard or rolled paper — in a pinch, cut open your extra paper grocery bags and tile them together — on an accessible wall in your house. A hallway works great. Turn it into a graffiti wall or choose a theme for the mural (such as “a day at the farm” or “Disney World”) and let everyone add to it. You may have to make “quadrants” so each child has a space that is their own.
6. Build something!
Challenge your kids to make a structure or a prototype of an invention. Then have a “Shark Tank” style presentation of their idea and what it does to the “judges.”
a. Get out the materials! Cardboard (got any leftover delivery boxes), popsicle sticks, scraps of wood, newspapers, Tinkertoy, Legos, K’nex, macaroni, sugar cubes, paper clips, foam, felt, pipe cleaners, construction paper, etc.
b. Get out the fixatives! Hot glue, tacky glue, washi tape, duct tape, wood glue, hammer & nails, etc.
c. Get out the decorations! Paint, markers, glitter, pompoms, googly eyes, foam shapes, gems, etc.
7. Go on walks, hikes or bike rides together.
You may not feel safe playing on playground equipment that others use, but you can take walks through the woods and observe nature or head to a park with trails to bike or hike on.
a. Perhaps pick up some raw materials for a creative project once you return. Acorns? Rocks? Leaves?
8. Origami!
If you have paper in the house, you can do origami with your kids. You can download patterns and instructions for free. Origami helps with fine motor skills and spatial awareness.
9. Write a story or a play together!
Each person creates a character and then put those characters into a situation. It might even be a quarantine! It could also be a classic story like stuck in the woods, searching a cave for treasure, boarding a ship to space, or trying to track down a villain or rescue someone from a monster.
a. Get the kids coming up with a story together. Let them create a role for you to play. Go with what they create!
b. If the kids want to write a script or dialogue, go for it!
c. Schedule a performance time and have the kids make the premier poster. They can even make tickets to give out.
d. Make popcorn and the whole family sits down to watch the performance and appreciate the actors and writers.
10. Make something from scratch.
Some examples that are fairly easy with typical ingredients:
b. Butter
c. Pasta
e. Pretzels
f. Ice Cream
You and your quarantined kids are going to see a lot of each other over the next couple of weeks. Make it a time that is full of memories that drew you closer as a family. This will soon be over, and the kids will be back to their busy schedules and you’ll be back to your office.
You may be dreading being locked up together now, but take this advice and you — and your kids — may be looking back on this time in quarantine fondly.
