Recently, the Australian governmental bodies have determined social distancing and isolation, which is making many parents and carers handle with the seemingly endless energy of children stuck at home. Children need to burn that energy by doing physical activities, which is a challenge depending on the size and format of each child’s home. In order to provide you with some ideas to entertain children at home, Speakable team has listed some activities to keep children active even at home.
Arts and crafts. You just name an activity you’ll be busy on, and the child will probably want to participate. Use this as an advantage when you go cooking, cleaning home, or even in more complex activities such as painting, sculpting with mud, even assembling furniture or other items. The more they feel part of parents’ activities, the more focused and responsible they might become.
Chalk games. A number of colourful chalks would be the fun of a whole day when children feel the freedom of drawing on the floor and following fun games such as walking through a narrow chalk-made path, hopscotch and other ones.
DIY toys with recycled materials. The more we stay at home, the more trash we produce, including PET and glass bottles, cardboard, plastic containers etc. It might seem just trash, but for children it’s free raw material to make their own toys the way they might like. Improvised action figures, cars, planes, weapons to fight monsters and many other uses can be imagined.
Family dance party. At least once a day, just make everyone at home stop what they are doing, put a playlist full of energy and make everyone dance together at the living room, backyard or any other place large enough for the whole family to have fun together, singing, dancing and jumping.
Garden adventures. Nature is always mysterious and engaging, so it will always a great call to invite children to simply observe how nature behaves. Talking about plants, identifying small bugs, noticing the difference between rocks and dirt, or even looking at funny forms the clouds are making at the sky.
Invent your own game. Whenever you are out of ideas, count on children’s innate ability to invent games and rules to have fun. Give them this empowering responsibility to create their own games, help them reach fun but fair rules.
Scavenger Hunt. An amazing solution when you need some time out but children are still full of energy. Elaborate a list of items to be found by the kids, inside or outside the house (depending on the safety and structure of your home): it could include anything, such as a red LEGO piece, a heart-shaped leaf, a folded t-shirt etc. When the child finds everything from the list, how about as a reward the chance of making a delicious dessert with you to be eaten after dinner?
There are many other ideas to keep children busy and entertained at home, have a look at the two following videos from a mother who tested the ideas with her two small children:
Because you can.
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