This post was written mostly for parents who are being sent home from work along with their children. Each family’s situation will be different, and I understand that entirely. I hope this post will be useful in some way to everyone with a child at home, and particularly to parents who are wondering:
How do I keep my kids occupied while I’m stuck at home with them for two weeks or more?
What do I do about my kids’ education while schools are closed?
Relish the time together – It’s not every day that the world conspires to keep us at home together with our families. Normally, it’s the opposite. While the reason we are home is far from pleasant, we would be foolish to waste the opportunity it provides to get to know each other a little better, strengthen our family bonds, and support one another.
As a family who has been homeschooling for 10 years now, using many non-traditional methods of learning, we have a wealth of experience, a healthy dose of creativity, and a willingness to try new things. We’ve had to figure out how to maintain learning and bust boredom through some lengthy illnesses, including the flu, coxsackie, and mono. We’ve had to organize our homeschooling around both parents working. And we’ve had to pause and take time to grieve when we’ve lost loved ones.
With that experience at my back, the first thing I’d like to tell you is, don’t panic, and here’s why:
Your fear, stress, anxiety, and panic are just as contagious as any disease, especially to your children.They look to you as the parent for leadership and guidance, and so it’s your responsibility to maintain your calm and confidence.
Panic reduces your ability to think clearly, plan, and make decisions.
High levels of stress and anxiety can make you more susceptible to illness.
This gap in your child’s traditional schooling will not put them behind. Actually, if the time is used wisely and is looked at as positively as possible, this break from your traditional routine can become a huge opportunity for your child and your family as a whole.
So, what activities can be done together that will reduce some of your stress and anxiety, bring you closer as a family, and still provide some means of education while your kids are not in school?
Games – Games are a great way to sneak in some learning, while at the same time spending quality time with your children and reducing anxiety and stress.
Some of our favorite board and card games also provide practice in reading, spelling or vocabulary (like Scrabble, Scattergories, and Apples to Apples), art (like Pictionary or Whatchamadrawit), math or strategy skills (like chess, Dos, Yahtzee, and Forbidden Island), or an opportunity to glean some knowledge or spark an interest in science or history (like Evolution, Ticket to Ride, Cytosis, and Timeline).
We tend to keep a LOT of board games and card games in our house, but I recognize that many people don’t. A single deck of cards or pair of dice provides many math-related game opportunities and discussions about probability. If you don’t have any games at all, some simple pen and paper games, which provide some practice in drawing and strategy skills, include drawing mazes for each other to complete, Dots, and Tic Tac Toe.
You can make your own games with items as simple as some cardboard, a pen, and a couple pennies or other small objects to use as place markers, or by making a deck of cards out of some index cards or paper cut into squares. When your kids help you make a game, or create games on their own, it becomes a learning activity in itself, incorporating game mechanics, math, drawing, writing, creative thinking, and more.
Some games that you can play without any extra equipment include Charades, Simon Says, and Hide and Seek. Most of these incorporate some level of physical activity as well, particularly helpful for more active kids stuck inside. My kids particularly enjoy a workout game we came up with consisting of running in place alternated with various other activities, ranging from the serious (sit-ups or push-ups) to the silly (flopping on the floor like a fish). You can also set up scavenger hunts or treasure hunts for each other, with or without clues.
I don’t generally recommend video games, as many of them seem pointless to me, and many are too full of war, anger, destruction, and death, which we already have too much of in our world. However, I have found some value in some of the video games that require physical movement, such as those on Wii or X-Box, like Just Dance or Sports Resort, which also can be played by multiple players.
Books – Reading books together is another great way to spend family time, take your mind off the craziness of the rest of the world for a bit, and provide some learning opportunities, too. Books and magazines come in all topics and areas of interest, so they have the potential to cover any subject.
You can read together at any age. Little ones often like to be snuggled and read to, emerging readers can practice reading aloud to you, and older kids might enjoy reading a book of their choice and then sharing their favorite parts by reading them aloud to you. Kids who have a hard time reading can take turns reading with you. Audiobooks can provide a longer shared story for the whole family to experience and compare their thoughts on afterward.
Reading a book together can also set the stage for the rest of the day by providing a theme or direction for potential activities. Just add a little imagination and creativity, and keep an open mind. For example, reading a book about Rapunzel can spark a desire to build the witch’s tower out of blocks or Legos, lead to an afternoon of styling each other’s hair (if you aren’t going out anyway, it doesn’t matter what it looks like!), and inspire a castle fort built out of couch cushions and blankets. Reading a story set in World War II can lead to pretend-play adventures as a fighter pilot, learning how to swing dance, and finding locations on a world map. (We have a giant world map on our wall, but you can find one on your phone or computer, too.)
Now is also a great time to devour any book series. I recommend the Harry Potter books, which provide great opportunities for imagination and creative thinking, as well as openings for talking points about danger, death and grieving that may feel safer than real life. Rick Riordan has written several series, which inspired my kids to develop interests in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythologies. The Junie B. Jones series is readable by younger kids, but it’s a riot for young and old alike, and reading them aloud makes them extra funny.
When I help other parents get started in homeschooling, one of my first recommendations is always to get a library card for your local library if you don’t have one already. Unfortunately, the current health scare is preventing that from being a viable option right now. So, if you happen to be in a situation where you don’t have a stash of books of your own, or you run out of them too quickly, here are a few other ideas:
Use video chat to have a family member or friend read one of their children’s books aloud to your child.(This is also a great way to connect with family members without risk of exposure.)
Round up some paper and crayons, and write a book together with your child.For older kids, you can work together on that novel you’ve always wanted to write.
Tell each other stories you make up on the fly, memories and stories from your life, or what you remember from stories you heard as a child.
E-books and audiobooks are available online through various companies for download to just about any device.
If you already have a library card, you may be able to access some e-books through your library’s online catalog.
Pretend play – Kids can share a lot about what they’re feeling and thinking by playing pretend. It’s a great way to have fun and spend some time together, and it’s got a lot of educational benefits, too. Dolls, action figures, stuffed animals, puppets, and Legos all provide plenty of opportunities for pretend play, storytelling, creativity, and imagination. Kids can play dress-up in some of your old clothes, shoes, or jewelry. Tea parties are fun, and drinking tea can help boost the immune system. Working together with your kids to write and record a silly skit, and then sending it along to a family member or friend, can also be a way to connect with others when stuck at home.
Journals - Keeping a journal, and encouraging your kids to do the same, is a way to safely express and explore feelings, fears, and anxieties while also providing practice in writing. Choosing to share pieces of what they’ve written can be a way to begin calm conversations about what’s happening, and provide opportunities for them to ask questions. Also encourage writing about happy things or memories, or positive aspects of their time at home, too, to help change focus or perspective and reduce anxiety. Remember to allow your kids some privacy, just as you would expect them to respect your privacy.
Kids can also keep journals on other things, such as facts or research they accumulate on topics that interest them, or a nature journal to keep track of the birds they see at the window feeder, or a journal devoted to inventions they want to build someday, or their thoughts on books they’ve read.
Art and Music – Art and music are great ways to have fun, work together on a project, and express feelings, too. We have a fairly large collection of various art and craft materials and supplies, as well as a giant tote full of instruments and sheets of music. I’m aware that we are probably unlike most people in that regard. With that in mind, I tried to keep my suggestions to just a few ideas you can do with basic materials and supplies you might already have around the house.
Drawing, creating comic books or simple picture books, doodling, and playing drawing games can be done with just paper and pen or pencil. Add scissors and you can experiment with geometric shapes and fractals, cut out paper dolls and snowflakes, or make a detailed paper-cutting. Add glue or tape and you can create collages, cut-paper images for a story, or paper finger puppets, or experiment with quilling (which is art made from tiny rolls of paper). Add flour and old newspapers and you can create a papier mache masterpiece.
An old sock and some buttons can be the start of a puppet. Raid the recycling bin and you can create a cardboard castle, a birdfeeder, a tiny town for dolls or cars, an alien spaceship, or whatever your imagination can come up with. Colored pens or pencils, markers, crayons, paint, or even food coloring can provide color to any of your artwork. Play-doh, either store bought or homemade, is great for hours of sculpting and creative fun.
Create a family band using homemade instruments (raid that recycling bin again!), practice beat-boxing, or make up some silly songs together. Listen to music, sing along, and try to keep the beat. Stay active by making up silly dances, choreographing a dance, or acting out some of your favorite songs. Does your child play an instrument at school that they brought home with them, or take lessons outside of school? Now’s a fine time to practice, practice, practice!
Don’t be afraid to get messy when being creative. Now’s a great time to practice cleaning up, and of course, washing your hands!
Resurrect an old hobby – Do you have any old hobbies you got interested in when you were younger, but had to put away to go to work and have kids? This is an opportunity to tune up your guitar, dust off your knitting needles, and crack open those old comic books, because you can share your love and knowledge of them with your kids. There’s a good chance your kids will learn something new about you, and they might even find you more interesting.
HomeEc – Being at home provides an opportunity for kids to learn about the very practical art of how to take care of oneself. Have your kids had the chance to learn how laundry is done, what bills get paid and why, or how to empty the vacuum cleaner? Can they help you make a tally chart of what items you have on hand, or help set up a meal plan for two weeks? Do they know where food comes from, and how to make it? Do they know how to apply the math and science and everything else they’re learning in school to the real activities that make up their lives? Now’s a good time for that.
But don’t forget to make it fun. Some of my fondest memories are when my kids followed me around the house and helped me with chores, or when we worked together to make dinner or dessert, and they infused those normally dull tasks with their wild imagination and curiosity. The washer and dryer became a train engine and coal hopper, and we fed the “engine” with “coal” (wet laundry) from the “coal hopper,” while simultaneously ensuring clean socks for the week and learning how laundry gets done. The kitchen magically became a fancy restaurant and we were famous chefs, serving the public our wonderful creations, while at the same time discussing fractions and measurements, and learning how to cook and read a recipe. These activities are the stuff that make up the bulk of our lives at home, and shouldn’t be something that’s dreaded and dull if we have the option to make it otherwise.
With spring on the way, time on our hands, and everyone’s current desire to disinfect everything, now’s also a great time for some spring cleaning, which also provides a casual way to discuss germs and how they spread. Cleaning out closets or attics can provide opportunity to look at family photos and tell stories about when you were a kid or when your kids were babies. But you might want to hang on to those old clothes for now – they could work as dress-up clothes if your kids get bored, or an alternative to paper towels or even toilet paper in a pinch (just don’t flush!).
Share control – Right now, regardless of age, your kids may very well be afraid and feel like their world is tumbling and crazy around them, as though they have no control over the events in their lives. (And you may be feeling the same!) As the leader of your family, you can provide them with an opportunity to have at least some control, which may help to ease those scary feelings a little.
Give your kids some of the choice about “what are we going to do today?” in a fun and friendly tone (not one of despair). Start with just a couple simple options, especially for younger children, like “Should we build with blocks or do some puzzles?” or “Should we read some books or make some cookies together?” Keep in mind that too many choices can be overwhelming, especially if they aren’t used to having them. Then be sure to listen to them with an open mind when they offer ideas or suggestions of their own, and try (within safe and reasonable limits) to accommodate those ideas when you can, and to offer alternatives when you can’t. Older kids especially, who might be more aware and informed about the situation, may need some downtime to process what’s going on, and may appreciate the opportunity to explore their own interests for a bit.
I hope this post was in some way helpful to you, and above all, I hope your family stays healthy and safe. How are you spending your days at home? Let us know by signing in to leave a comment below, and be sure to subscribe to be notified when my next post is published.