COVID-19 Pandemic: Activities To Keep Your Children Confined To The House
Parents, confined to the house with the children, will have to redouble their inventiveness to find occupations and entertain both the young and old. Sports sessions, Games, DIY, escape games at home, origami and family recipes, the list is endless. The good thing is our fun and creative ideas will definitely help you overcome the coronavirus period!
The confinement that comes with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world causes more anxiety than we would like to admit. Starting with the parents who must now juggle working from home, homeschooling, caring for the elderly and preparing meals for the whole family.
That said, being confined to the house with children also means that we will have to keep them occupied for the next few weeks! Also, to avoid being stuck in front of the Netflix programs all day, we advise you to take advantage of the time with your children by suggesting playful or creative activities to share together. Let’s go!
- Do It Yourself (DIY) activities
Did you buy a little too much toilet paper? Think of recycling by reusing the rollers or any other accessory that will allow children to surf the DIY trend! Whether decorating their room or creating small gifts from everyday objects, young and old will love creating origami, pretty cards, photo frames, dreamcatchers, boxes from shoe boxes or even bunnies in socks … You will be surprised at how much they can create beautiful things with their little hands. Children do not lack imagination when it comes to making objects or letting their talent be expressed. Make way for creativity and, if necessary, take inspiration from tutorials.
2. Disguise Yourselves!
One thing is certain during confinement: no one will judge your child’s dress! If he starts to be nostalgic for his friends and school, why not offer him to put on his favorite disguise? In Superman, Lady Bug, firefighter, princess, fairy, or even knight costumes, he will find a smile and energy! Why not organize your own carnival at home? Everyone disguises himself, including the parents, and off we go for the parade! To keep your children occupied even longer, you can also make them up, or offer them to create their disguise themselves with what they have at their disposal: cardboard, paper, old sheets, scarves, parents’ clothes. Another option will be to order the costume of his dreams, directly online.
3. Organize An Escape Game At Home
Even if it means staying locked up at home, why not transform the living room into an escape game? You have an hour to solve the puzzles (without being able to leave the room this time). Regardless, escape games are not necessarily outdoor activities! They can also be done at home, with escape kits for young and old. The themes are varied and everyone will find a concept to their taste. The kits include the necessity to organize your escape game in ten minutes. You will find there, the game to print and the installation guide detailing all the steps. The organizer will also have some clues to drop through the house.
4. Easy Recipes To Make With Children
Since you have to stay at home with the little ones, who have probably eaten the whole kitchen by noon, preparing all the meals for the day does not really delight you. An additional task for which you weren’t quite prepared. To avoid cooking under duress, why not involve children in the preparation of your dishes? What if we concocted small cakes with them that they could taste for afternoon tea and breakfast? While your cupboards are teeming with industrial cookies, offer your children healthy and delicious snacks, which you can prepare in advance! You could also teach the children some homemade family recipes for these star snacks! It’s as good a time as any.
5. A Sports Session To Allow Them To Let Off Steam
Do we need to be reminded that children need to run, to exercise, to let off steam and probably get tired enough to want to nap all the time? Back when they were in school, they probably practiced a sporting activity constantly. So, while they are confined at home and once the distance lessons are over, push the living room furniture and organize a sports session altogether. You have the choice between Gym Direct on C8 which sometimes offers sports lessons dedicated to children, or you can opt for yoga sessions for children, to be done in the lounge. Another idea: initiate the little ones to meditation to help them de-stress. Being confined with your children should not prevent you from making them participate in a sporting activity. Especially since the little ones have a real need to let off steam! Here are some tips for playing sports at home, with your family, while in confinement!
6. Make Origami Animals
Create beautiful origami with leaves decorated with pretty patterns that you can just fold with your child to create beautiful creations. If you are not too good, you can also opt for paper casseroles, or planes, with which the children will love to play next. This folding will quickly become a breeze! To keep the little ones occupied, learn how to create these adorable sculptures. Who knows, you might just be teaching them a new hobby.
7. Introduce Children To Gardening
Do you have a garden or a balcony? Take the opportunity to teach your child how to grow plants, how to take care of them and water them. This is also a great opportunity also to teach them the names of the different flowers that will soon start to grow. This activity, if the weather is good, is often an ideal activity to share with the family, and which allows young and old alike to be busy. Gardening allows children to discover nature and learn how plants grow. These are some tips, ideas, and fun projects if you’re going to teach your kids gardening.
8. Build a Cabin
Children love to build their own cabin, using blankets placed between the bed and the desk, or between two chairs. It doesn’t matter if the room is in rubble, the main thing for them is to create their own house in which they can confine themselves and invent a lot of stories! If you have a large piece of cardboard left, you can also use it by cutting out a rectangle that will act as a window. Be careful, adults are often forbidden to enter, but that’s good, right now you want to get out.
9. Salt Dough Characters
If you are not afraid of running out of flour in the coming days, try this manual activity that spans generations. Children love to prepare the ingredients that will allow them to become budding sculptors. After placing their preparation in molds in the shape of figures, they are baked in the oven. It then remains to painstakingly paint the creations in salt dough and to display them for decoration. Wondering how to make salt dough? It’s very simple. All you have to do is mix flour with water and salt! Our recipe for developing your creativity is by making little characters with children. Great, isn’t it?
10. Plasticine
The clay is also a must! Children never tire of creating characters of all colors, bringing them to life. Wondering how to make plasticine? Well, here’s a tutorial. After making your plasticine, there are a lot of amazing things you can shape your plasticine into. To learn all the fun things you can do with plasticine, watch this beautiful video.
11. Board Games!
Nothing like good old Monopoly, a Pictionary, a Taboo or even a Time’s Up to have fun all together! Board games have the advantage of bringing the whole family together, regardless of age. Board games bring the whole family together. There are the essentials and the novelties that amuse young and old. Which one you should choose depends solely on the age-grade you’re trying to entertain.
12. Create Jewelry With Crazy Plastic
Do you have any crazy plastic or hobby games that your children received as Christmas gifts? It’s time to bring out these traditional toys! There are some creative kits that contain everything you need to make original jewelry and keychains. The principle? The children draw a shape or a character that they color on a crazy plastic sheet. They then cut out their drawings, which you can bake in the oven at 150 °, for 2 to 3 minutes. Do not forget beforehand to make a small hole using a hole punch, so that you can slide a wire. Cool.
13. Painting a Canvas
Another means of expression: painting. Here, the little ones discover the joy of spreading the colors and creating new shapes with a brush. Plan what you need: accessories and utensils, canvas, palette, an easel, and apron. A word of advice: let your child put it everywhere, no matter if it gets dirty (the paint goes into water). While staying by his side, allow him even to plunge his hands into it to create his imprints of all colors. Note: the painting might not come out great. But it’s your child’s’, so you have to love it anyway.
14. Draw and color
Suggest that your child draw a pretty drawing on a particular theme (seasons, animals, nature, a family portrait, etc.). If he is still a beginner, you can also print a few coloring pages to color or simply teach him to draw using a template. Do not forget to hang the work of your little artist on the walls of his bedroom or in the living room, in order to enhance it. His drawing can even be used as a gift for Dad’s next birthday!
All these are just a few examples of the awesome things you get to do with your kids in this season. As the popular saying goes, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonades. Or something like that. Feel free to drop your two cents and more amazing suggestions on how to keep the minions occupied as the parents strive to stay sane.
Be safe. It will all be over soon.
All pictures are obtained from pixabay, free for commercial use and no attribution required
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