At Home Fun | Activities for your Coronavirus Staycation

You’ve just got word that the school districts are closing two weeks before spring break, that means nearly one whole, unexpected month with our lovely children.  Wonderful, extra time with our children, who wouldn’t want that, right?  However, along with the schools shutting, so are the main attractions around us, including the spring break camps.  So, how can we occupy ourselves and our lovelies, so we don’t go stir crazy!

Indy with kids has compiled a list of activities that will hopefully see you through to when school restarts again.

Grow a Plant

Grab some seeds from the store, find a lovely sunny spot in your garden and get planting! A wonderful opportunity for learning about science, responsibility and anticipation! You’ll all be excited for that very first shoot.  Make use of your local seed library too (at local libraries) Under quarantine? Take a look around your kitchen, you can use the seeds from strawberries, avocados, berries, potatoes, and many other fruits and vegetables.

Turn your Kids’ Favorite Story into a Play

Get your kids to choose their favorite story, go and raid each other’s closets for ‘costumes’ and get together to learn your lines.

Get to the library

Libraries are such a fantastic resource and have so much to offer, for FREE!  Libraries will vary what they offer but most have story sacks, DVDs, board games and an endless array of books to borrow at your hearts content.  My local library allows us to borrow up to 50 books at a time! They have great educational resources, both on the computer and on paper.  Most also have activities for you that you can attend, check out their websites for more info.

Arts and Crafts

Time to get creative! Arts and crafts are always my go to if we have an afternoon to spare.  All you need is two toilet rolls, beads and some yarn…BAM! You have yourself a marionette.  Socks make great sock puppets, toilet rolls can be cut to make a fantastic car/ball/slide, make some artwork for the walls.  Don’t forget, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Easter are coming up soon too.  This is a great opportunity to get ahead and make the occasion cards

Indoor Racetrack

Get out that trusted masking tape and make a racetrack around your home. Have at intermittent stations, a mud bath, a stony road, a drive thru and a car wash.  Make sure you have two lanes (or more if you’re feeling brave) and RACE!

Scavenger Hunt

Ok, so this one takes a bit of planning and is dependent on your children’s ages.  For the younger ones you could use pictures and they have to find the partner to that picture.  For example, leaf and tree.  For the slightly older ones you can use simple sentences and then for the older children, more cryptic clues!  This could either be a teamwork or a race activity! Make sure there’s a prize at the end!

Camping

We are finally on the brighter side of winter, the weather is getting warmer and the clocks have moved forward, hurrah! Get outside into your back garden and set up those tents. What if its raining? Camp indoors! A family film, snacks, jammies, a comfy spot, lay out those sleeping bags and tuck up for the night.

YouTube Yoga

Yoga is huge! It’s got such great benefits for children.  My daughter did it whilst at daycare and loved it, she learnt about breathing techniques to calm herself when faced with a scary situation and learnt some wonderful stances.  The yoga episodes are performed alongside popular Disney stories such as frozen and Trolls.

Indoor Games

There are so many different options you can do and Pinterest is your best friend right here! Think a basketball wall, balloon ping pong, golf or obstacle courses to name a few.

Puddle Jumping

We’re bound to get a downpour over the next month so after the rain has fallen, grab your boots and head outside for some puddle jumping! Aim of the game is to jump in as many puddles as you can find and get as soggy as possible!

Theme Days

Together as a family think of some theme days you would like to hold.  You could have a whole movie day, a day doing jigsaws, a day making, a day reading, a day baking and so on, the possibilities are endless.  If you’re feeling really brave, you could even have a yes day!

Prevent Spring Break Slide

Have you heard of the summer slide? You know, where children are off school for a long period of time and tend to forget what they’ve learnt throughout the school year?  Well now the kiddies are going to be off for nearly a month so how about we try and prevent a spring break slide? Take this time to practice handwriting and skills they’ve been working on at school.  Reinforce them with the use of flashcards and workbooks which you can usually get from the dollar stores, Walmart, Target and Amazon.  It’s all useful preparation for those all important test coming up for some.

Screen Time Chore Chart

All of these activities and not once have we mentioned the most loved activity, TV time! However, if your children are anything like mine, once the TV is on, you’ve lost them!  Instead, make them work for it by introducing a chore chart.  Children will complete a number of pre-agreed chores in order to earn precious TV time, it works well even for the youngest of children all the way up to teens.

I hope we have given you some great ideas to get you started and have got your creative juices flowing to think of other exciting ways to occupy yourselves during this time.

Stay safe everyone, try to keep away from big gatherings, use your hand sanitizers when out and about and wash your hands as frequently as possible.