At Home Activities for Kids
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During this crazy time when most of us are home with our children and responsible for schooling them for the first time, I’ve gathered up resources and ideas for how to learn/teach at home in a way that will be easy and enjoyable for kids and parents alike.
First and foremost, create a schedule for your day. This daily schedule from Khan Academy is great for us newbies navigating this homeschooling thing for the first time.
Second, once you find your rhythm, you can find things to do below separated out by the type of activity.
LEARNING
Have your child pick a topic they'd like to learn about and spend 30 mins each day on that topic. Write a 3 - 10 sentence report on the subject based on their age.
Spend one day reading every single picture book in the house
Have each child write a letter and/or emails to a different friend or family member each day
Write a short story & illustrate it
Write a cooperative story. Each person writes or dictates a different sentence.
Create character trading cards to include name, image, and at least 5 characteristics for each character.
Create a comic strip that tells the story of a book you read.
Kitchen Chemistry - make slime, vinegar/baking soda reaction, Coke and Mentos, etc.
Listen to kid podcasts - we love story pirates and smash boom.
Scholastic is offering day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing.
Connect to Khan Academy to explore self-paced math lessons. They have stuff from pre-school through beginning college.
Create a graph activity (i.e. ages of family members, daily temperature, number of times each letter appears in a paragraph) for a week and analyze the results. Choose a different topic each week.
Visit Mystery Science for some fun lessons.
Visit Code.org to learn about computer science and various coding activities.
HELP AROUND THE HOME
Go through all the old mail laying around (kids love helping tear stuff up)
Bake something yummy
Have the kids help with yardwork in between playing games outside. They're little, but they like getting dirty and "working" in the gardens.
Team up and really clean and organize each kid's space, making a donation box for each. Do this for you too.
Wash and clean out the car
Make up a meal from interesting items in your pantry
With your kids, plan, draw or write out a well-balanced meal. Prepare prepare this meal together and have your child write, draw and/or document the experience.
INDOOR PLAY
Use all of our building toys on one giant structure
Try stop motion animation with playdough
Play boardgames
Build an epic LEGO house
Learn to sew
Make cards
Work on scrapbooking
Build a fort
Make something out of cardboard boxes
Do a puzzle
Have kids make up their own board game
Be creative with crafts - beads, friendship bracelets, beados, macaroni necklaces, modeling clay, painting, weaving, knitting, etc.
Do a fitness class on YouTube - we love CosmicKids
Play Just Dance Now on your smartphone or Apple TV
Create an indoor scavenger hunt
Make ice cream
Make and play with play dough
Have a spa day - give massages, paint nails, have fun with face masks (make your own with bananas)
Play hair salon
OUTDOOR PLAY
Have races of various kinds in the backyard (hopping on one foot, crabwalk, walking backwards, etc.)
Inventory the plants & wildlife (from bugs on up) in your yard.
Learn the parts of plants/flowers & how they function (bonus if you learn the Latin names too)
Start seeds for the garden
Get binoculars and learn about the birds near your house, look them up on google and search for their birdcalls on YouTube
Play sidewalk chalk outside
Have a glow stick party
Mow the lawn (ha! I used to think this was fun as a kid)
Host the Olympics with a bunch of event competitions - funny ones, helpful ones like cleaning and really fun ones like minute to win in style.
Go for a hike
Let your kids “paint the fence” with washable paints
SCREENTIME
Facetime or Skype with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends a lot
Watch everything on Disney+ (we were so happy they released Frozen II early. Thanks, Disney!)
Popcorn + movie marathon
Stream videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations at StoryLineOnline. Includes closed captioning . If the site is down, check them out on YouTube.
