This can be a stressful time, trust me I am home with our two kids as well. Here are the ideas that you awesome mommas sent me to help each other out and keep the kids entertained while at home for the next week or so. Sending happy vibes and hoping your coffee gets you through the day! 🙂
Please let me know if you have anything to add.
-Puzzles
-Clean (My kids actually like to help put up the laundry or help dust)
-Glow stick or Popsicle Bath- this sounds like fun
-Build a fort
-Build a Theater and watch a movie
-Letter/ Number Practice in shaving cream (or you could do spelling words)
-Teachers Pay Teachers (this is a great resource! Teachers make lesson plans and sell them on this website as extra income. You can search for free things or search a specific lesson you are looking for).
-Sidewalk chalk
-Chalk design on the fence- using painters tape. Put tape down first with the design you want, then have the kids color the space, and when you’re finished peel up the tape to unveil the design. Also works on the sidewalk.
-Help wash the car, their bike or outside toys
-Paint with Watercolors
-Color on boxes-make a rocket ship or car
-Draw obstacle course with couch cushions, chairs, pillows
-trace a friend on concrete
-Create an obstacle with what you have at home
-Have a picnic in the living room (ok I know disaster right? maybe try outside then?)
-Make playdough
-Make slime (outside)
-Board Games
-Dry Erase Boards
-Butcher paper taped to the floor- use colors, markers, stamps
-Create a story together
-Practice numbers/letters in dirt/sand
–Busy Toddler
–Dayswithgrey
– Play in a sprinkler
-Dig for worms
-Catch bugs
–Color pages
-Puffy Paint-shaving cream, glue and food coloring. There are a variety of recipes to try
–Making colored Salt. This looks like fun. You could color rice the same way too, but add rubbing alcohol to it to coat the rice first and then add the food coloring.
-Have a color day- try and make everything that you eat and drink the color for the day
–Kids Play Tricks is a great website
-Make homemade pizzas. Get a pizza kit from a local pizza shop or roll out a canned biscuit dough and put whatever toppings on it that your kids choose.
You can also use store-bought sugar cookie dough and make dessert pizzas with icing and fruit
-Move furniture around (change of scenery might help)
-Sensory Bins with Rice, Oatmeal, Beans (use whatever you have at home)
or Literacy Enrichment and Play has an Amazon list to help you out
–Cosmic Yoga
–Go Noodle
–Virtual Tours of Museums
–Engaging Littles has a free Preschool Activity calendar
Hands Down as We Grow
Water Beads
inflatable water table
Double-Sided Art Easel
**This google doc is floating around the internet about online resources for kids while they are at home too**
*some links are affiliate links*
Some Ideas I received for Teens and the older kids:
-Create a Scrapbook
-Bake or cook a new thing together
-Cook dinner for the family (let the teen/older kids decide what to make)
-Bake bread from scratch together
-Plant some flowers or garden
-Watercolor or paint
-Help organize
-Board games- turn it into a family board game night
-Bike rides
–Minute to win it games
–Free Escape Games
-Camp out in the backyard
Here are some more great ideas from The Local Moms Network
Literacy Enrichment and Play has created their own Amazon list to help you create
Kiwi Co has a section of DIY ideas to do at home
FEMA has “games” to play to explain situations like this. On the website, there are also lists on how to build an emergency kit and what to have in it.
Stay up to date with school closures around the Houston area
