While children view no school and summertime in general as a holiday and ‘fun time’, it’s essential to involve them in games, as well as activities, that will keep their minds and bodies engaged.
During this time of having to stay home, having a plan for playtime, downtime, and well-being is crucial.
Here are some ideas to help your kids be active, stimulated, and academically challenged while they’re out of school.
First, it’s important to get organized, efficiently plan, and stay as organized and consistent as possible.
Toys
Depending on the age of your kids, toys can have a big role in their playtime, and also in their learning. To keep your kid interested, put away some toys for a period of time, then bring them back into the rotation, so they seem like new.
Board games, construction toys, cards, trains, and play sets are just some of the good toys that can keep kids engaged. You can start a “week-long puzzle challenge” project with a puzzle that is just beyond your child’s comfort level. It’s a collaborative, re-focusing, and calming family activity, and taking them days to finish one will teach them perseverance and problem-solving skills.
Story-telling
Play old slideshows of family vacations and tell the stories around them.
Have your kids create a slideshow of the family “staycation”. They can use a Google Slideshow to create at home and share with cousins, classmates and friends. This would help kids build narrative storytelling skills, keep them connected to their friends and classmates while out of school, and keep them creatively busy. You could help your kids edit their work and fine-tune it before they share it with others.
Books
Books and audiobooks are a great tool for children – they can expand their horizons and their vocabulary, and teach them to appreciate the art of storytelling. Audiobooks can be very beneficial for kids before they can read, and for kids who are not strong readers (they should still do an actual reading when you’re available to help; this is great for when you are working, etc.)
You could also look into podcasts for children.
Everyday-Life Math
You can “find” math everywhere in the house – just have your kids go around the house and measure everything in a given size. For a week, have them measure everything that is one inch long one day, the next day add an inch, and keep increasing the size incrementally for each day.
Next, have them count everything in your home – little ones can count things one-by-one, but the older, elementary-aged children can put items in groups to count.
Have your kids come up with word problems based on sharing, for Instance, “If you and your two siblings/cousins/friends have 28 mini-figures/candies, etc. and you share them equally – how many will each of you get?”
Home “Science Lab”
Every life experience is a learning opportunity.
If you have a garden – get a butterfly garden going with your kids, so they can track the development and life cycle of butterflies. You can also start an indoor butterfly garden where you and your child can chart the growth from egg to butterfly; most butterflies and moths stay inside of their chrysalis or cocoon 5 to 21 days.
Now is a great time to start a seed garden and see how each seed germinates.
All these activities prompt children to check in daily and teach them how to record, chart, and analyze progress.
Next, turn your kitchen into your science lab – you can find a lot of ideas on the Internet for experimenting using things you probably already have, like food coloring, oil, dish soap, etc.
If you have a microscope – use it to look at anything and everything through it.
Honor Each Day
Consult the already established national calendar days to come up with a fun and educational plan around each day. Google trivia on the given day’s celebrated subject and talk about new things you yourself are learning with your kids.
Or, you can either make up your own “honor and learn day”, like “Our Garden Day”, “Family Tree Day”, etc.
Celebrating something no matter how seemingly common can be a gateway to learning about Greek mythology, geography, agricultural trade, and horticulture.
Get Artsy
This is a great time to explore artistic and creative sides of your child, as well as your own – and where it takes you!
Take advantage of all the resources available online; check out YouTube tutorials on how to draw complex characters and animals, use musical learning apps to help your kids hone their instrument-playing skills, etc.
If you’d like to keep the kids offline, there are wonderful process-art handbooks and thematic activity books available for parents and kids that can really challenge and inspire the imagination and build narrative storytelling skills.
As a family, get artsy and make sculptures using salt dough, cans, plastic containers, empty Amazon boxes, and other recyclables.
Younger kids are natural at this using their imagination and creating elaborate fantasies with stuffed animals or action figures, but older kids may need some help. Encourage their imagination by suggesting they produce a play or write a story.
Online Schooling
While your school district may have online options for learning, here are some favorites from the teachers themselves, such as Prodigy Math. It’s free, like an online fantasy world where you win quests by doing math problems, kids can play with their friends, and it’s safe because a parent makes the “world” and only invites specific people. Parents see the results and can assess their children in specific areas without them even realizing they are being tested.
Another great tool is StoryLineOnline.net, a free read-aloud website with stories narrated by some of the world’s most-famous and celebrated actors. If your kids love reading, you can set up a private reading group on GoodReads for them and their friends.
Hand-on House Children’s Museum is offering a video series of adults reading children’s books online for kids to enjoy at home. See their Virtual Story Stretchers and other readings online. They are also preparing local coloring pages that kids will be able to download and color.
There’s a host of online resources to keep your home-schooled kids interested, such as Outschool, Khan Academy, and Teachers Pay Teachers to help you find downloadable resources, learning units, and printables.
Online Entertainment
To give your kids an opportunity to connect with their friends, consider setting up a Zoom party, or set up a virtual watch party on Netflix with their friends.
Snapology of Lancaster is offering a daily challenge for kids – a different Lego Build Challenge each day, such as Build an Amusement Park Ride, or Build a Boat That Floats, or Build Your Favorite Character. One winner is selected each day.
Physical Activities
Set up an indoor or outdoor basketball area, and start your own one-on-one basketball challenge. You can set up brackets with different t-shirts/jerseys playing against each other, FaceTime or Zoom as you play, and even broadcast this tournament live over Facebook.
Play socks war – everyone in the family gather up a bunch of their balled-up socks, choose sides, or everyone for themselves, and fire away! You can do this in the yard when weather permits, or simply go to your basement or family room. Lots of giggles, no one gets hurt, and everyone benefits from the physical activity.
Dance to your favorite tunes, encouraging playfulness and free expression. You can create a dance playlist with your kids, letting them choose some of their favorite songs. This is another great activity that can also be virtually shared with friends and family.
If running out of options to keep your kids entertained and you live in Lancaster County, PA, you can rent children’s equipment from Little World Play. They are offering the rental of their single items for a couple of days for kids to play while staying at home.
And, if your kid is doing vision therapy, which opens the door to do better in school and live a happier life, it’s a perfect time to focus on making sure your child continues to incorporate it during this time.
At Vision Development Center of Lancaster, we offer programs designed to address very specific sets of vision disorders displayed by an individual patient.
Looking for vision therapy techniques, therapy for ADHD, or ADD therapists in Lancaster PA? We invite you to contact us today – call our office at (717) 656-0534 today to make an appointment, or take our free symptoms survey to see if you may benefit from the vision therapy.