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As parent sometimes it may be hard to keep your kids entertained especially when your kids are home for long period of time like school breaks and especially summer.
Spending a lot of time at home with your kids and looking for ways to keep them entertained? Here are seven ideas of fun things to do at home with them.
“Time spent playing with children is never wasted.”
Dawn Lantero
50+ Fun Things To Do At Home With Your Kids
Play Board and Card games
Board and card games are good activities that can be done over and over, because the games and outcomes change depending on who are playing.
Consider having a tournament for one game per week, or just play for leisure. This activity has an added benefit of being educational, as most games have to use math, reading, strategy, or logic to play. In brief, this is a good time to learn new board games. Moreover, you can even have a tea party with your younger kids to add more to the activity!
Click here for some of the best board games for kids.
Outdoor Physical Activities
Physical games, such as tag, hide-and-seek, playing catch, walking, and basketball are all fun activities to enjoy as a group, plus they give some good exercise when you cannot get to the gym.
For people who just want to be alone and work out, walking through the neighborhood (and also being careful to maintain social distancing to others out walking) is a fun idea. Furthermore, if you have a house wall that doesn’t have windows or doors, your kids can can even play tennis on the wall. Any kind of outdoor game is a great activity for kids because it helps them get their energy out, and teaches them the benefits of staying active!
Indoor Physical Activities
Physical activities don’t have to be relegated to the outside, however. Yoga, floor exercises, and indoor hide-and-seek are fun. Watching YouTube videos to learn different dances as a family is a novel way to approach being together all the time. What’s more, learning something new helps with boredom.
Treasure Hunt
Hiding things from kids, then making a treasure hunt for them to find it, is a creative approach that can breathe new life into days that seem to blend into one another. While on a grocery shopping trip, buy something that your kids would particularly enjoy – a treat they normally would not get.
A new movie, book, or board game, or an edible treat. Place the inedible treat into a plastic bag and hide somewhere either outside or indoors. Of course, you can’t hide an edible treat (think ice cream) like that, but you can hide a note announcing the treat.
While your kids are occupied elsewhere or asleep, make a treasure hunt. Make it with as few or many hints as you want, using rhymes, or clues, or anything else you can think of. The harder the hints, the longer it will take kids to figure it out.
Give them one hint that leads to another, but resist the temptation to get chores done this way. Older kids might see through this and refuse to play along, so you’ll have to eat your special ice cream. On the other hand…that may be worth doing too!
Movie Marathons
If you have littles, grab your laundry baskets (not hampers) and make a “drive-in” movie theater, complete with popcorn and lemonade. Put a double feature of kids’ movies they haven’t seen in a long time on the television, and then let them sit in the baskets with blankets and pillows for comfort.
Equally, you can do this same thing for older kids, teens, and the whole family by putting a mattress on the floor with lots of pillows and blankets, and everyone lie down on the floor to watch the movie. It’s different, yes, but that’s what we’re going for.
This can be done several nights, with one person each night getting the opportunity to choose the movies (this would also be a good prize for the treasure hunts or winning a board game tournament!).
Remain Productive
Using this time wisely to clean, sanitize, declutter, and organize the house and yard is a wonderful idea, and children will feel like they are contributing to wiping out the virus or at least doing something productive in this waiting game.
Spring cleaning is a good time to declutter, scrub, clean, and also redecorate using what you already have. Start from the attic and work down to the living room, even the basement if you have one. Also, if you live in an apartment, start from the biggest storage closet you have and work your way through. You may find things you’ve been searching for, or things you find that may bless someone else.
Cleaning the yard up, mowing, weeding, and planting are great ways to get exercise in and also make the whole family feel productive. While you’re doing that, consider doing something Americans did during World War II – plant a “victory garden.”
It can be either a raised or tilled bed, or done in pots on a deck or patio. Even apartment-dwellers who have balconies or patios can do this. Buy plants at a local discount or gardening store along with fertilizer, top soil, and any tools you may need. Moreover, it’s extraordinarily rewarding to eat the foods you have grown yourself.
Right now is a great time to learn new skills, such as cooking from scratch (using those old cookbooks you found in a box in the attic!), making bread, or baking cookies and cakes. Many stores run very low on bread, so making your own bread will come in handy – and you may find you like it better!
Go Backyard Camping
Whether it’s tent-camping outside in your own yard before it gets too hot, or making a fort indoors using the dining room table, kids will enjoy seeing their parents in a different way. There’s just something about telling stories with a flashlight aimed upwards from your chin inside a darkened tent that builds memories. Also, you could even try camping indoors if you have the space. Turn your living room into a cave with your imagination, and your younger kids will follow along. Just try not to start any fires indoors!
What To Do With Kindergarteners At Home?
- Get a pet
- Create a life sized family tree
- Make glow in the dark slime
- Make a garden and plant fresh veggies
- Learn how to make homemade ice cream
- Set up a nail salon in your home and try different manicure techniques
- Get dressed and have a fancy dinner in your home
- Dress up in your best clothes and have a fancy dinner at home
- Make your own bubbles and try out different bubble blowing techniques
- Make your own candy or even chocolate
- Listen to an audio book or podcast
- Try Cosmic Kids Yoga – your kids will love it
- Play hide and seek
- Learn a new dance
- Do a painting project with Kool-Aid
- Have a Zoom or Face-time play date with friends and family
- Make a water sensory bag
- Have a family music or karaoke night
- Make edible play dough
- Create a scavenger hunt in your back yard
- Make a treasure bottle and maybe even bury it
- Make a tie dye T-shirt
- Play zing-zang-zoo, hangman or tic-tac-toe
- Make a time capsule
- Have a picnic in your backyard
- Read a new book with your kids everyday – try Audible and Vooks for online books
- Learn how to make a paper fidget spinner.
- Let your kids write and direct their very own a stop-motion movie.
- Snuggle on the couch and have a lazy day
- Rearrange or redecorate rooms in your home
- Have a family pillow fight
- Make an indoor or outdoor obstacle course with things in your garage
- Build a giant fort out of blankets, chairs and pillows
- Paint with Kool-Aid. Instructions here
- Teach your kids how to wash and fold laundry
- Put on a puppet show
- Learn how to write a letter and send one to friends or family
- Make a scrapbook from old photos
- Have a spa day
- Teach your kids Black History
- Create fun creatures out of pipe cleaners
- Learn and play a new card game.
- Practice origami, also known as art of paper folding.
- Make a maze on the floor with painter’s tape.
- Play outside with sidewalk chalk
- Play indoor volleyball or soccer with a soft ball or balloons.
- Make all types of paper airplanes.
- Let your kids play dress up with your clothes
- Have a tea party.
- Play “I Spy” in or out of the house.
- Handwriting practice with shaving cream
Bottom Line On Fun Things To Do At Home With Kids
Most of all, talk with your children about the season in which we’re living. These are uncertain times – for kids as well as adults. They have fears just like we do, and we need to do things a little differently to get their minds off everything that is going on and get them excited about being home.