Things To Do With Your Kids During The COVID-19 School Shut Down

 

Relax, Plan Ahead & Enjoy the Family Time

The spread of the Coronavirus is just starting.  This is a bit chaotic for everyone.  We don’t know how long it will last.  It is important to stay home.  Don’t take your kids to playgroups, indoor or outdoor parks with other children, trampoline places, etc.  In California public libraries are closing too.  Homeschooling parents are going to have an easier time than public school parents that are used to someone else teaching their children and them being gone 6+ hours a day but even homeschoolers are usually used to park days, field trips, enrichment classes, etc.  This is going to be a trying time.  Yes, you can let your kids watch tv or play on their computer and cell phones all day.  But that will only last so long too.  Especially with younger children.  You’ll have bored kids with too much energy.  In my house they’d be fighting too much too.  This is a list from life experiences, from homeschooling when my kids were younger, and some ideas I’ve seen online and from friends.  The list is in no particular order.  

Plan your day but make it a loose schedule.  If you are doing an art project and the kids are really into it, let them.  You don’t have time constraints.  If an idea isn’t working than try to adjust it or move on.  You can come back to it a different day too.

Wake up- have the kids help plan a daily or weekly menu.  If they can hold a spoon and stand on their own they can help make meals.  Have them make their beds daily (good habit) and you all can make breakfast together.  It is up to you if you want them to get dressed every day or stay in pajamas.  Let them help you plan the day.  Give choices.  “Do you want eggs and bacon on Monday or Tuesday?” This is a good way to cook with inventory you have but let them decide the day.

Get some learning in.  If your school sent home textbooks and lesson plans than it is a lot easier.  If not, make up some on your own.  What was your child last learning?  Expand on that or go forward.  A lot of this depends on age.  Little kids might be learning colors and numbers.  Older kids might be writing essays and reading Shakespeare.  

Plan for 20-30 minutes per subject.  Focus on the core subjects; math, English, science and social science.  If your child is learning a foreign language that keep up with that too. Don’t do hours upon hours of schoolwork at one time.  Even in public school there are breaks between classes, times when the teacher is lecturing, time for announcements, etc.  You can have breaks between each subject for something fun.  Use the websites below to help you with some online learning.

I used to make an obstacle course for my son to give him a break while doing schoolwork.  He’d run outback, touch all five palm trees then run to the front yard and touch the mailbox and run back in.  Just a short time to get some energy out.  If he had a lot of energy I’d do it twice.

 

Get Out the Paint, Glue, Slime, Glitter, etc.

Do an inventory of your art supplies.  Find projects you can do with the items you have. 

• Letter writing.
• Do some rock painting and put them out for free. 
• Coloring
• Arts/crafts
• Make your own greeting cards.
• Make some homemade finger paint.
• Make projects together on your Cricut.  I have an Explore Air 2 and just got a JOY and plan to make some t-shirts, tote bags, cards and label some things for my classroom.
• Baking can be limitless!  Make homemade bread, rolls, cookies and cakes.  If you have to much store it in the freezer.  Make a minion cake!
• Discuss black holes and make black hole donuts.
• Find cozy places to read.  Make a reading area, build a fort with some bean bags or pillows and bring some favorite books.
• Have a puppet show.
• Make your own pinatas.  A few if you have a lot of birthdays coming up.
• Have a tea party and make mini-sandwiches.  You can even make the tea.
• Theme an art project to a book.  Read the book and then to an art project about it.  Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me.  Search Pinterest for other great ideas.
• Science is my favorite subject.  There is so much you can do.  Some things you’d need to buy supplies for but you can order on Amazon.
• Make a volcano.
• Show kids how you can trap water in a bag that has holes in it.
• Grow crystals.  You can do this with a cup, pencil, food coloring and some sugar or salt.
• Make flourless playdough.  Create shapes, animals, use cookie cutters.
• Go you YouTube and learn magic tricks.
• Learn how to sew, knit, crochet, etc.
• Plan ahead and make crafts for the upcoming holidays.  A leprechaun trap, things for spring, Easter, etc.  You can even do things like dye Easter eggs, just for fun.  My mom used to put paper towels under everything and they’d soak up the dye.  She’d let them dry out and then she’d shred them and use the colorful paper to put at the bottom of our baskets the following year, or use to put in gift bags for birthdays.
• I grew up watching Little House on the Prairie and this site has amazing information about the Ingall family, crafts, recipes and so much more! 
• Get some geodes.  Hammer them in backyard and discover what is inside.  Some kids for younger kids have dinosaurs. 

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Explore Your Neighborhood

 

Get outdoors.  You shouldn’t be hanging out with others but that doesn’t mean you have to be indoors 24/7.  There is still a lot you can do outside with just your family.  This is a nice time to connect and have meaningful chats, talking about your childhood, tell the kids funny stories.

• Go for a walk in your neighborhood or the arroyo.  Check out the wild life.  
• Learn about the winter birds that are out.  Try to identify them.  recognize the male and female and the different songs they sing.
• Look for bugs.
• Collect leaves and save for crayon rubbings.
• Play Pokemon Go.
• Go for a bike ride, get out the skateboards or roller skates.
• Go in your backyard. 
• Do some gardening.  Plant spring vegetables. Make vegetable markers to label them. 
• This is a great reading and spelling idea if you have a trampoline in your backyard.  If not you can do it on the driveway or patio.
• Cut fresh flowers and make flower arrangements. 
• Find a little neighborhood library and get some books to read (great idea since our public library is closed).
• Plan ahead and make gifts for birthdays, Christmas, holiday decorations, etc.  I used my Cricut to make oven mitts last year and gave them away as gifts.
• If you have good weather go find an empty beach.  Search the low-tide times and look for tidepools. 

 

When my kids were young we’d have random indoor fun that they didn’t realize was educational.

• Put shaving cream on the bathroom mirror and draw letters and numbers.
• Spread cotton balls on the living room floor and get a cup or bucket and chopsticks.  Kids can race around the room trying to pick up the cotton balls (one at a time) and place them in the cup.
• Get audiobooks of a book they are reading and listen to it as they read along.  Good way to understand how to pronounce words and to read a book a little above their level.
• Get out board games and puzzles and do them together. Find puzzles of the states or the world.
• Look through old family photo albums.  Discuss the locations, time periods, ancestry, etc. 
• Teach kids life skills.  How to do the laundry, balance a checkbook, make a budget.

Take any subject and turn it into a unit study!

Take one item (an interest of your child’s, something around your house, etc).  Learn all about it and apply it as many ways as you can. Try to apply it to English language Arts (ELA), math, science, social science, art, foreign language.

• Dinosaurs: The background of where they are discovered, types, names, subspecies, make your own, get mini-dinosaur erasers and use for counting and skip counting, write a story about dinosaurs (ELA), draw a picture with dinosaurs in it. Learn how to say dinosaur names in other languages. 
  You can do this with anything!
• Pick lemons in your yard.  Count them.  Scratch the skin and smell them.  Search recipes with lemons and make some.  Read the recipes (ELA), double the recipe (math), make cupcakes (science), learn where lemons came from.  Are they native to your state? How many different species of lemons are there in the world? 

 

Other random fun things

 

• Paint your nails.
• Read through the kids’ baby books.
• Make homemade uncrustables for lunch.
• Pick a movie to watch together.
• Play dress up.
• Clean out your closets and get rid of unwanted clothing (yeah, not ‘fun’ but doesn’t hurt to do it).
• Teach the kids how to make homemade jam!  With younger kids you’ll have to do the actually stirring and canning part since it’ll be hot but they can help get all the fruit cleaned, desteamed, sliced and measured.
• Get the kids to help with housework.  If they are young enough they’ll get excited to help.  It is funny.  Just stay with them and watch them with the cleaners.
• Make sensory bins.
• Make your own Dinosaur Fossil Dig Kits. 
• Get some toilet paper tubes and tape and make sculptures and buildings.  Decorate with tissue paper.
• Make jokes out of spelling words.
• Make poems with magnetic poetry.
• Create a music video.

 

Get Online For Free Learning Websites

There are a million online educational sites.  Here are a few I loved.  Most are 100% free right now.  Plus I heard some cable companies, including Comcast and Charter, are offering free internet to families so they can have access to the educational sites.  Check with your child’s school to see if they have a list too. 

 

• Free dance classes with Guy Grove.  He normally teaches in a studio but is offering this to help people out.  Great for kids and adults.
• Check out The Happy Scientist Robert Krampt for some earthly science fun and videos.
• Virtual field trips of the zoo, landmarks, volcanos, etc.
• Free daily courses from Scholastic.  They are sorted by grade level too.
• STEM activities from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories).
• This is a huge list of random online sites that are free.
• Have fun with conference calls.  Your kids can call their friends and family.  Show their projects you are doing at home or just chat. Right now ZOOM is allowing K-12 free online meetings.
• Take virtual tours of famous museums.  You can find favorite pieces and recreate them at home.
• Watch a real opera, live-streamed. 
• If you want some educational materials check out TPT (teacher pay teachers).  Find a grade and subject and click ‘lowest to highest’ for the price.  There is a ton of free printable material in all subjects.  I just downloaded some for $4 to teach kids about sales tax, percentages, discounts, etc and made a lesson plans about restaurant bills.
• Print free coloring pages.  Find ones of famous dead people, historic sites, animals, etc.
• Check out The Science Penguin for free printable unit studies in science.

 

Some sites I use in the classroom

• BrainPop and BrainPopJr  BrainPopJr is for younger kids.  They now have a BrainPopELL (English language learners).
  (teachers use MobyMax, Legends of Learning and Prodigy to test kids in math and science and see where they are at and what gaps they have.  There is breaks with games that the kids like).
• MobyMax
• Legends of Learning
• Prodigy Game
• GoNoodle is crazy dance videos that are educational.  Kids either love or hate them.  Kids can watch or get up and dance too.
• Kahoot is a fun site where kids can create accounts and take quizzes against each other, themselves or strangers.  They can create quizzes too.
• ReadWorks is an educational digital classroom for all ages.
• Khan Academy is 100% free and offers online lessons and step by step instructions on how to in many subjects. For all ages but mostly older kids. 

We aren’t sure how long this school shut down will last.  Here, in Los Angeles, we are off two weeks but are told it might be 6-8 weeks. If people are ever worried about the ‘summer slide’ then you should be doing a little bit of learning each day to keep kids on track for this semester.  You might not have the time nor supplies to do all of these.  But small things, like reading 30 minutes a day, is a good start.   I’ll be adding to this as more ideas come to mind or I add suggestions.

 

I would love some suggestions!

What is on your list of things to do over the next few weeks?