Educational: Read Books
Reading books with your children is such a lovely way to spend time with your children. From a very young age, books stimulate children’s imagination and expands their understanding of the world. Children learn new words the more they read and as they learn to read on their own, it also helps develop their confidence and independence.
Crafts: Build a cardboard castle
Building a cardboard castle is not only fun but it is also interactive – a great bonding experience for parent and child. You can be as creative as you like, but make sure the whole family get involved.
Activities: Plant some flowers
You may be in lockdown, but you can still enjoy the fresh air in your own garden by planting seeds with your children. Watching plants grow is a fun and educational experience for children. Growing plants teaches children how nature works and the responsibility for caring for something.
Games: Do a puzzle
Puzzles are not only great fun, but educational too as they help to promote cooperative play, working together to create a lovely picture! They are also particularly good at helping young children with their hand-eye coordination.
Crafts: Make a Time Capsule
Making a time capsule is a lovely thing to do together as a family. All you need is a shoebox, pen, stickers, or other decorating supplies and mementoes from each family member. Get each person to choose something that means a lot to them, or something they have drawn and pop it in the box. You can even fill out a questionnaire with the price of milk, what was happening in the news, who was number 1 in the charts etc. Adults can also write letters to their children for them to open in the future and children can write letters to their future selves. When you have finished, close the box and write ‘Do not open until…’ on the top!
Activities: Adult & Baby Yoga
Adult and Baby yoga is not only fun but great exercise! You can find lots of videos online of varying difficulty, so just pick the level that suits you.
Games: Play Board Games
Board Games are a wonderful way of spending time together and can be educational too. Get each family member to pick their favourite and play a new game each day, or the same one if you love it that much!
Activities: Make dinner together
Children are more likely to eat what they make, so cooking together is a great family, fun-filled activity, albeit potentially very messy! Also meals made from scratch usually contain more nutrients and fewer calories and sweeteners.
Educational: Learn about a new animal
Each day learn about a new animal with pictures and sounds. Farm animals are a great place to start as you can sing ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ as you learn. When we teach children farm animal words and noises, we’re not only teaching them about the many sounds we make in the English language, but also about our culture and the world.
Activities: Make Handprint Art
If you don’t mind mess then making hand and footprint art is a fun way to spend a morning or afternoon with the kids. All you need is some paper, paint and protective clothing!
These are just a few suggestions, there are so many more. The most important thing is to just have fun!
