Creative Ways to Entertain Your Kids During Social Distancing

Governor Wolf just announced that Pennsylvania public schools will remain closed until at least April 6th. We have had our beautiful kiddos home with us for a week now and have at least two more to go. If you are like us, then you may be running out of ideas to keep your kids and your sanity in check. Lucky for us there are some great ideas parents have been posting. Here are some of our favorites.

Themed Walks

You have to get out of the house (as long as we are able) and still keep social distancing in mind. Taking a family walk is a great way to get everyone out of the house, and get some fresh air. But if your kids are like ours, they aren’t going to get excited about a “walk.” The solution: themed walks.

Come up with a theme and create a scavenger hunt type walk. For example, the theme can be something as simple as who can spot the most squirrels or play the alphabet game (look for signs with the first letter of a word, starting with “A” and go all the way to “Z”). Want to throw some math in the mix? Come up with a number and see who can find two or more house numbers that add up to that number.

Are your kids missing their friends? (I’m sure they all are.) Get with the parents of their friends and create a scavenger hunt for each family to do. Send pictures or videos of the items on the list to each other, and see who wins!

If you live in a neighborhood, try to get your neighbors involved. Post on your community Facebook page and see if anyone is interested in participating in a neighborhood theme each day. For example, today could be safari day. Neighbors would put stuffed animals, think lions, tigers, zebras, in their front windows for kiddos to find. Neighbors could take turns coming up with themes on different days. The older kids might not be into going on the “safari,” but they might help plan and set up props.

Challenges

We tried this one over the weekend, and it was a success with our 13, 10, and 7-year-old boys. Make a list of challenges for everyone to complete. I used a mix of chores, workout activities, fun/silly stuff, and a little match. Your challenge list can be whatever you choose. Just remember to hype it up and fuel the competition a little. See below for a picture of one of the challenges we completed.

Scavenger Hunts

I mentioned scavenger hunt walks above, but scavenger hunts can be done in your yard or indoors if you choose. For those with only one kiddo or if your kids are missing their friends get some other parents involved. Create a group list and see who wins.

Older kids at home? Let them make the scavenger hunt list and be the “judge.” Have them coordinate with their friends’ families to have a virtual scavenger hunt competition. This will give you some time to get some work done or at least fifteen minutes to yourself.

Home Improvement Projects

We currently renovating our home and are trying to include our kids whenever we can. Learning to paint, hammer a nail, properly use a drill, and other basic tasks are things everyone should know how to do. Now that we have a little extra time and aren’t in a rush, it’s a good time to teach our children these things and let them help. Who knows? If they help paint the hallway, then maybe they will be less likely to put their greasy fingerprints all over the wall…. we can hope at least.

Games

It is a great time to break out Monopoly and Clue, but those will get boring pretty quickly. You can find all sorts of games online that you can create at home. We love the Minute to Win It games. The directions are pretty simple, and you probably have most of the supplies needed in your house. Plus, kids and adults have a great time with these. You can find 200 here.

Here are some other games your family might enjoy:

• The Marshmallow Challenge
• Human Hungry Hippo (if you don’t have enough balls, get creative and use balled up socks, oranges, or anything round)
• Old fashioned puzzles
• Make your own obstacle course or better yet let the kids create an obstacle course challenge
• DIY Science Experiments (not really a game, but the whole family can get involved). Here’s a list of 20 to get you started.

Staying Connected

It’s hard for many of us to be away from our extended family and friends right now. Luckily for us, technology is here to help us stay connected virtually. Check out this link for 12 apps to stay connected while social distancing. You can use these apps and include your extended family and friends in any of the above activities. More good news- Comcast and other internet service providers are offering free wifi and/or waiving data usage fees for their customers.

Staying Positive

Not many of us expected to be in this situation right now, but we are. Let’s look to find the positive each day. Having any creative boredom busters? Please share in comments. We are always looking for more.