COVID-19 created big troubles- not for doctors and patients but for every mother in the nation who got desperate to find ways to keep her kids busy. With schools, gardens, indoor play areas, activity classes all closed, the big question is HOW TO KEEP KIDS BUSY AT HOME? How to keep children entertained and away from mobile / How to keep children engaged during the lockdown/ How to keep a pre-schooler busy. It became a bigger challenge for working mothers who wondered How to keep kids busy while working from Home.
Besides school-going children, infants and toddlers too are badly affected because they are growing rapidly and want to explore more and more. Their growth mustn’t be dampened by COVID. So here are a few games and activities – totally hassle free and can be done with stuff available at home.
Before we list out the activities, there are Three KEY RULES you need to stick by for making your life easier till COVID situation gets better and schools re-open.
RULE 1: Involve your children in household chores
Household work is completely unexplored for kids and introducing them to it blows their mind. Simple activities like drying clothes, unpacking and stacking groceries (of course after sanitisation), folding quilt and making their own bed, watering plants, assisting in the kitchen, folding laundry are amusing to them. Remember to tell her what a great job she’s doing and remind her much she’s helping you out. Clap and praise her every time she does a good job.
RULE 2: Stick to a schedule. It’s not a vacation
School makes life of parents easy because it puts kids in a routine so you can plan your day too. Don’t mistake COVID for a vacation and maintain the schedule of your kids.
RULE 3 : Let them do their work
Let your kids wash their plastic toys. Add tear-free bubbles, sponges, towels and other supplies.
10 activities to keep the kids indoors and busy
1. Puzzles and Games
Draw some simple puzzles, dot to dot shapes, spot the difference, crosswords etc., in your child’s rough note and help the child to complete the task. It helps to
-engage a child in a useful manner
– improves a child’s memory, attention, concentration,
– enhances problem-solving skill and processing speed
-builds flexibility of thinking.
Examples are given below.
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
JIG SAW PUZZLE
HOW MANY
DOT TO DOT
2. Set up a treasure hunt
My daughter loves to play hide and seek so I expanded the scope of the game and turned it into a Treasure hunt. You can make it as easy or difficult depending on how many items are there and the kid doesn’t lose interest.
For toddlers, hide their dresses, shoes, toys, pencil box or tiffins. Hide anywhere from 10 to 20 items around the house to keep kids occupied for a few hours.
Turn in into a fun learning session by teaching the first alphabet or spellings (depending on kids age) of the hidden thing.
3. Have a Roof-top / indoor picnic
Weather in Delhi is great in the last quarter of the year so I put my terrace to optimum use at this time. I Grab a sheet, make some Maggi, and enjoy a rooftop picnic on Sunday mornings. Kids love to sit in tents as if it is their private world, so get your husband along and take his help to set up a tent with bedsheet, fabric rope and pillows (See picture below) or you can use chairs facing outward and put a bedsheet on it (See picture below).
Once set, you can play any board game, memory game, puzzles. It is a treat not just for your kids but both of you too. If you like the idea, set the date and plan a picnic this coming Sunday. I can bet you both will enjoy more than your kids will.
4. Sorting Colours and shapes
This game helps cognitive development. You need Bowls, Marbles or small items of different colours.
- You can take a magnet and play a game of sorting magnetic vs non-magnetic items
- You may bring bowls and plates of different sizes and ask your kid to arrange them size-wise
- Bring together all alphabets and number puzzles and ask your kid to put all A’s , all B’s and so on, together.
- Another tough one is to sort a bowl of beans. Believe me, it keeps them quiet for 30 minutes at least. Its a work of great detail and precision.
- Sorting playing cards is another great way to keep them occupied.
- You can make alphabet sorting fun by drawing a matrix on the floor with coloured tapes and placing alphabets in each square
- Sort the blocks as per colour or shape
- Cut craft paper into different shapes and put them all in a bowl for sorting
- Lastly let them sort their clothes into tops, bottoms, vests, undies, socks, napkins. You can also as your kid to pair up the socks, it develops both motor and cognitive skills.
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ALPHABET SORTING
SORTING BLOCKS
BEAN SORTING
SHAPE SORTING
SORTING BOWLS BY COLOUR / SIZE
CARD SORTING
5. Arts and Craft
When you have nothing to do, don’t despair! Grab your child’s attention using available stationeries like crayons, glue, glitter, paint, newspaper and other waste materials and let their creativity shine. Making puppets, paper planes and boats, puzzles, their own snakes and ladders on cardboard or on the floor with poster colours (Don’t worry, poster colours get wiped off) are just sample ideas. Don’t worry about the mess. Just let them enjoy this time. Sometimes I lay big colouring sheets on the floor and let her loose.
6. Indoor Obstacle game
Now that gardens and playground are out of the question, why not create one at home. Put to use your old bedsheets, sofa cushions, pillows, a small chair or stool, a large cardboard box, a big plastic storage container or bucket and make obstacles that your toddler can climb, bounce, sit, stand and jump on, crawl and stretch. So Create an activity centre in the comfort of your own home. You may also use Hula hoops to jump through, Table to crawl under, Stuffed animals to roll over, Blanket over 2 chairs to crab walkthrough.
7. Pretend Play
Doctors, museums, schools, restaurants – there’s nowhere to go now. So build them at home with exciting pretend play games. While playing doctor-doctor, teach them valuable lessons like brushing teeth.
You can also make stories with their figurine toys like a meeting of jungle animals or farm animals going on a strike against torture or a town where superhero rescues citizens. Use household items like foam or cardboard to build the town and use tapes to create roads on the floor. It‘ll be fun.
You may build a fairyland with cardboard coloured rainbows and cotton clouds inside a big box. Dress up the dolls like fairies with old net and extra cloth pieces and decorate with cutting from wedding cards.
Make a supermarket, animal store or jungle, racing tracks with tapes, construction sites etc.
These are just two ideas, recreate with whatever toys you have.
FAIRY LAND PRETEND PLAY
8. Items from the kitchen cupboard
Plastic cups are great for stacking. You will be surprised to know the different ways your toddler finds to stack the cups. You can also fill them up to introduce the concept of what holds large volume and what holder lesser volume.
So grab a variety of kitchen cupboard items, preferably with holes in, and a packet of straws to make fun activities for your little one.
Pushing pipe through the holes of a colander is a super activity for fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
STACKING WASTE CUPS
STRAWS THROUGH COLANDER
9. Target Games
Set up some targets (empty water bottles or paper towel rolls work great) and have your kids try and knock them down with balls or throwing soft objects. The exercise comes in when they have to keep going back and forth between retrieving their objects and the start line.
An alternate is to Set up your bowling “lane” with some painter’s tape and use plastic bottles or cups for pins. Use any type of ball to bowl, attempting to knock down as many pins as possible.
Keep track of the score, or simply aim to knock them all down in one turn. Create a plastic cup pyramid to up the fun-factor even more.
10. Dance Party
The last one is my personal favourite. Turn on the high-energy music and have a dance-off! Make sure you have a large open space (clear of toys to trip on) and twirl, twist and shimmy your way around the room. Add in musical instruments or turn off the lights and break out some glow-sticks to prolong the party. Add-in a game to your dance party where one person stops the music and everyone else must instantly freeze. If you catch someone moving, they’re out. The last one standing (or dancing in this case), wins.
Mix and match to create amazing games for fun and frolic. Keeping kids indoor is tough but safety is of utmost importance. Stay safe inside and bring out your creativity to keep the kids busy with these ideas. You can also share your ideas on how you keep your kids engaged. Would love to share them with fellow moms struggling to find fun indoor activities to keep kids busy.
