Activities for Kids in the Time of Covid-19
It has been almost two months since Luzon was placed under community quarantine because of Covid-19.
This post has been on my draft for a month! It's a little late now because ECQ might soon be lifted, at least in my province, but nonetheless, if we move to GCQ the activities in this blog post can still be done. I heard once we move to GCQ, only people between 21 to 59 years old will be allowed to go out, so these are still applicable for the young ones.
Actually, they can be done even on regular days.
I've been joking how my life wasn't turned upside down since the quarantine started. I've been working from home for years, so being confined at home wasn't really such a big adjustment for me, except that we couldn't go out for family trips and do groceries (whenever) anymore.
Luckily, a day before the quarantine started, our son's school year has ended, too, so we didn't have to continue school work at home. But March and April were supposed to be busy months for us because we were preparing to move to our new house, and Popy was supposed to graduate from K1, so we had a whole road trip ahead of us.
My son is a bubbly, talkative and super active 4-year old and he was bored beyond I can imagine. I am amazed, though, because he's trying so hard to be patient knowing he can't go out.
Fortunately, we're all stuck at home, all five of us - my parents, husband, Popy and myself.
Now, before we even enrolled Popy in a regular school, we were practicing homeschooling and we've come up of different activities since then to keep him busy.
1. Workbooks - We have a lot of workbooks at home. If you don't have one, it's easy to make simple ones. I draw and make him tracing activities, sometimes. If you have a printer, there are a lot of printable materials that can found online.
2. Cooking - I asked him to help me prepare food a couple of times. His favorite are pizza rolls. We even made ice cream and Japanese cheesecake together. He helped his Tatsie make donuts.
5. Painting - Popy just finished painting pages on one of my planners. He's almost done with his sketchbook as well. We even allowed him to paint on his toy cars.
6. Making the bed - My maternal grandmother stayed with us for almost a month and she slept in the living room on her folding bed because it's breezier there and more comfy for her. We taught Popy how to help her in fixing her bed every night.
7. Folding clothes - I don't like folding clothes. 😂 Because I'm a work from home mom, one batch of laundry takes an hour to wash (thank you, AWM), but folding clothes can take 7 to 10 business days for me. Now, I have a little helper who's taking charge of this and won't let me help.
8. Scavenger Hunt - Thanks to Gab for making the map! This is one activity that Popy really enjoyed. :) For this one, I hid 5 yellow paper with stickers inside and outside the house and he had to follow the map to find them and get the reward at the end.
9. Dishwashing - This is very recent, like last night sort of recent. All of a sudden, he was volunteering to wash the dishes and he did them well.
These are just to name a few. There are a lot of activities for kids that can be done, which they can enjoy as well.
Sometimes, when we're packing his die cast cars (and we have a lot), I teach him colors and counting through that. In folding clothes, we learn about color and sorting according to who owns the clothes or according to what kind of clothes those are. He also helps his Nunsie in sorting the laundry and acts like an alarm when the washing machine is done with the process.
We also do storytelling, Bible-reading, singing and narration. For storytelling, I am the one who reads to him. For narration, he is the one who tells me what I read to him or what he watched.
A lot of our activities look like chores but there are a lot of learning opportunities that can be found in seemingly normal everyday activities.
How about you? How do you keep your kids occupied during the quarantine?
This post has been on my draft for a month! It's a little late now because ECQ might soon be lifted, at least in my province, but nonetheless, if we move to GCQ the activities in this blog post can still be done. I heard once we move to GCQ, only people between 21 to 59 years old will be allowed to go out, so these are still applicable for the young ones.
Actually, they can be done even on regular days.
I've been joking how my life wasn't turned upside down since the quarantine started. I've been working from home for years, so being confined at home wasn't really such a big adjustment for me, except that we couldn't go out for family trips and do groceries (whenever) anymore.
Luckily, a day before the quarantine started, our son's school year has ended, too, so we didn't have to continue school work at home. But March and April were supposed to be busy months for us because we were preparing to move to our new house, and Popy was supposed to graduate from K1, so we had a whole road trip ahead of us.
And then the pandemic happened.
My son is a bubbly, talkative and super active 4-year old and he was bored beyond I can imagine. I am amazed, though, because he's trying so hard to be patient knowing he can't go out.
Fortunately, we're all stuck at home, all five of us - my parents, husband, Popy and myself.
Now, before we even enrolled Popy in a regular school, we were practicing homeschooling and we've come up of different activities since then to keep him busy.
Here are some activities that we did while we're stuck at home:
1. Workbooks - We have a lot of workbooks at home. If you don't have one, it's easy to make simple ones. I draw and make him tracing activities, sometimes. If you have a printer, there are a lot of printable materials that can found online.
2. Cooking - I asked him to help me prepare food a couple of times. His favorite are pizza rolls. We even made ice cream and Japanese cheesecake together. He helped his Tatsie make donuts.
3. Mud and sand play - This is something we've been doing since Popy was a year old. Since he misses the beach so much and we have a lot of excess sand and loam from the garden, we allowed him to build castles.
4. Gardening - My husband and my dad have green thumbs. I come from farming families, both my mom and dad's side. My husband had been growing plants for a long time and did urban farming back when were still living in Manila, and Popy grew interest in doing the same. We have already transferred avocado, mangosteen and lemon seedlings in the family farm. Since the ECQ, we've seen the garden produce vegetables and crops for our meals. We grow tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, arugula, bitter gourd, chilis, okra, cassava, malunggay, bananas, sweet potato and more recently, calamansi and squash.
If you're living in the city and don't have a garden, you can grow several vegetables and herbs in pots. :)
If you're living in the city and don't have a garden, you can grow several vegetables and herbs in pots. :)
6. Making the bed - My maternal grandmother stayed with us for almost a month and she slept in the living room on her folding bed because it's breezier there and more comfy for her. We taught Popy how to help her in fixing her bed every night.
7. Folding clothes - I don't like folding clothes. 😂 Because I'm a work from home mom, one batch of laundry takes an hour to wash (thank you, AWM), but folding clothes can take 7 to 10 business days for me. Now, I have a little helper who's taking charge of this and won't let me help.
8. Scavenger Hunt - Thanks to Gab for making the map! This is one activity that Popy really enjoyed. :) For this one, I hid 5 yellow paper with stickers inside and outside the house and he had to follow the map to find them and get the reward at the end.
9. Dishwashing - This is very recent, like last night sort of recent. All of a sudden, he was volunteering to wash the dishes and he did them well.
These are just to name a few. There are a lot of activities for kids that can be done, which they can enjoy as well.
Sometimes, when we're packing his die cast cars (and we have a lot), I teach him colors and counting through that. In folding clothes, we learn about color and sorting according to who owns the clothes or according to what kind of clothes those are. He also helps his Nunsie in sorting the laundry and acts like an alarm when the washing machine is done with the process.
We also do storytelling, Bible-reading, singing and narration. For storytelling, I am the one who reads to him. For narration, he is the one who tells me what I read to him or what he watched.
A lot of our activities look like chores but there are a lot of learning opportunities that can be found in seemingly normal everyday activities.
How about you? How do you keep your kids occupied during the quarantine?
2 comments
Having a full-day routine helps kids manage their time and experience some levels of normalcy in their lives. They should continue to have naps and meals as they normally would. It should not be a big adjustment to them as they should already be used to it. Having a timetable can also establish healthy and constructive habits for them.
ReplyDeleteRead more: https://www.randstad.com.sg/career-advice/tips-and-resources/5-tips-for-parents-while-working-from-home/
Thank you for sharing, Katleen! I agree. The adjustments he had to make, though, were for the facts that we were not able to go on trips anymore and of course, school and his friends. We're all just stuck at home even now since kids aren't allowed to go out. We planned out these activities for him just to give some sort of adventure to enjoy.
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