Keeping Littles Busy at Home

I love how so many people have come together during this time of social distancing. People are using their gifts and talents  to help one another. I am certainly holding down the fort at home, and I know my value there, but I don't feel like I have much to offer the public right now. However, this list of ideas on how to keep littles busy at home are all tried and true, so I figured I would at least share with other parents trying to survive the cabin fever that is surely building a month in.

Collecting leaves for art projects.

I don't share any of these in a braggy way or to make anyone else feel lesser for not doing these things. We ALL have different strengths, and as a stay at home mom of three kids under 5 and a background in education, these things bring me life. Even though our kids are starting to play so well on their own, and their imaginations are incredible, I need something to look forward to every day, just to break up the monotony. I've seen so many options of virtual field trips and busy activities that it has felt a bit overwhelming as I've tried to figure out our new routine here. I have great intentions as I try to implement them, but it's usually too much to maintain consistently and I fizzle out after a few days of excitement. So I am trying to have one planned activity, usually in the morning or right after rest time, depending on our day. 

Airplane Cardboard Box Play

A lot of these might be things you've already seen or done, but my hope is that they will spark some new ideas to keep the quarantine blues at bay. I've struggled HARD with lack of motivation and finding energy to do anything above the basic necessities, so I know it feels hard, but for me, planning ahead helps me combat this a little bit. I know that's not everyone, so you do you! In planning these, I try to use things I already have around the house so I can get maximum fun and attention time from the littles with minimal cost and effort. Trust me, if I can do these things, you can too!

A few things to note: first, I have three kids under 5, so that's the target age range for most of these activities, but they could always be adapted for younger or older kids as well. That also means we aren't currently doing “school” per se, but are mostly learning through play with a few more intentional educational things mixed in, so we don't have that in the mix. And also, I am a stay at home mom, and have been since my oldest was born. This means I am not currently trying to entertain children while working from home. Seriously, moms and dads who are doing these deserve all the medals and chocolate! I can't imagine. I also don't mind a decent mess, but I love a good reset at the end of the day (or week, depending on the activity). Lastly, don’t stress when it doesn’t go the way you want (speaking yo those of us control issues 🙋🏻‍♀️). Let your kids lead in this. It’s supposed to be fun, and their ideas are usually better than ours anyway. 

How to Keep Littles Busy at Home

• Play music - Play something upbeat, using a blue tooth speaker, your TV, or just your phone. It makes an amazing difference in tone of our house, even when doing same old things: chores, playing, etc!
• Backyard Picnic - Grab a fun blanket or towels, make your own lunchables or your kids' favorite lunch, and eat outside or even on the living room floor.
• Bathtub paint - You can buy the special kind or just water-based paint washes off the tub easily!
• Window markers or paint - Again, the special ones or just dry erase markers worked for us!
• Cincinnati Zoo Virtual Field Trips - On the Cincinnati Zoo facebook page, they have an archive of previously recorded live videos with coordinating activities. They show different animals in their exhibits and answer questions. Each video is about 20 minutes long, and they're really interesting!

  

  Lego Zoo

• Create your own zoo - Use small plastic animals or stuffed animals and legos or whatever you have around to create different animal exhibits.
• Coloring - Put a twist on the traditional coloring book and crayons by putting out varied art supplies (markers, colored pencils, glue sticks, construction paper, whatever you have at home) and create cards or notes to family or friends you're missing. Get the kids involved in addressing or decorating the envelopes and taking them to the mailbox. 
• Water color paints - I'm always intimidated to get too "artsy" because of the mess. But one, I have started to just let some things go for the sake of creativity or fun or simply holding their attention. But the simple water color paints where you just dip the brush in water and then the paint is usually less messy than I imagine, and my kids LOVE it!
• Gluing - Now, hear me out. I had never let my kids use glue sticks until a few months ago. I cut out a bunch of random shapes from construction paper and gave them each a glue stick. They were mesmerized and creative. They loved it, and it was relatively not too messy!
• Nature Collages (or anything collages, really) - Collect nature items while going on a walk outside and bring them back and let them create using these items and glue or glue sticks. 
• Play Doh or Kinetic Sand - I know some parents detest this stuff, but I also know that makes it even more novel for most kids, holding their attention longer. We keep ours put up and they have to ask for it, but we've added things such as vehicles to make tracks or plastic knives and other kitchen items to spice up their creativity. 
• Indoor Pool Party - We just did this today, and it has kept my littles entertained for hours. We blew up our new summer pool, and filled it with the small "ball pit" balls. We've always used the slide into our pool, so we brought that inside as well, which is honestly probably why they played so long with it. They wore goggles and water wings, but you could even do swim suits inside! Get out "water toys" they don't always play with. Whatever makes it fun

  

  Indoor Pool Party

  and engaging. This requires a bit more work and we will probably leave it up all week.
• Cozy Reading Spot - Using the same blow up pool, or sometimes pop up tents, or fort, or whatever makes a cozy spot, we create a special reading spot. I set out special books, and that usually lasts only a few minutes, but they do continue to use it as a special play area much longer. 
• Indoor Camping - Bring in a small tent or pop-up tent, camping chairs, make a pretend campfire, tell stories, and make pretend (or real) s’mores! This is another one we've done for a whole week.
• Spa Night - I invited them to "spa night" and wrote out a menu: bubble bath, mani/pedis, facials, etc. It was all the stuff we usually do to prepare for bed (take a bath, cut fingernails and toenails, lotion, pajamas...) but spiced up for a bit more fun. Even my boys loved this. You could take it even further by doing a face mask, painting nails, doing hair, etc.
• Scavenger Hunts - Someone on facebook shared a great Scavenger Hunt List the other day of all different kinds: indoor, outdoor, by color, by letter, as a cleaning game (my personal favorite: "Everyone find all the green toys and put them away!" -- it works occasionally!)... These are easy to make up and a big hit with our kids, who love games!
• Tea Party - Have one with stuffed animals or a real one with the kids if you're feeling really ambitious.
• Super Hero Obstacle Course - Dress up in their favorite superhero costumes and use whatever you have around: couches, trampoline, slide, cushions, pillows, footstools, tents, etc to create an obstacle course for them to navigate. This is great for working on gross motor skills. Try to have them do moves like going over or under objects, walking in a zig zag or backward, jumping, hopping on one foot, and crawling.
• Take a Drive - Keeping with good social distancing practice, going for a drive makes for a nice change of scenery. Spice it up by doing a scavenger hunt or playing eye spy. Let them take a “friend” (stuffed animal) with them or bring a special snack. Drive by a friend of relative's house (but be sure to be safe and stay healthy). If you're doing this, I would encourage you to set it up ahead of time and communicate that you won't be getting out of the car and you just want to wave and say hi.
• Car Tracks - Use painters tape or masking tape and create a car track. I've seen one that even goes on the
  
  couches, tables, and other furniture. We've done this inside with a large roll of paper and more often outside on the sidewalk with chalk. Sometimes I make it large and they ride their bikes and ride on toys around it like a race track. Other times, they bring their small vehicles out and create a town. This is a favorite of ours, and we do this often!
• Cardboard Boxes - My kids love nothing more than being the brains behind a project. If we have an empty box and I ask S what he wants to do with it, he ALWAYS has an idea. I'm the cutter, taper, and general workhorse of the project, but he has all the ideas and designs. It's so fun to watch their creativity in activities like these. We've made cars, boats, airplanes, and space ships of every kind of design. Their imagination has no limit, and they will love working together to do this with you. I'm not fancy, and we never use more than packing tape, scissors or exacto knife, and markers. You could go all out and do paint, but that makes this project go from fun to stressful for me, so do what brings life to you and yours!
• Clean the House - I know, this isn't exactly a fun one, but I have been trying to have one scheduled day a week that we clean together. The kids actually think it's fun to use my Norwex cloths to wash the windows or dust. They "help" vacuum and pick up their toys. It's a win-win, because the predictability helps our house get clean, teaches them responsibility of helping, and sets me up to stop working for the weekend (aside from essentials like dishes or an occasional load of urgent laundry).

Playing in their fort.

These are just a few of the things we do. And not every day, mind you. Sometimes our "planned activity" for the day is going for a walk. We still watch too much TV and have tablet time every day. There have been other ideas people have posted that totally flopped with my kids, because kids are unique and have their own personalities, likes and dislikes, and aptitudes. That's okay! We are all just trying to do our best here.

Most importantly give yourself grace. Don’t compare yourself to another mom who posts what fun things she and her kids are doing (no, not even me... especially not me)! Guaranteed, that was a fun part of the day or week, and maybe they’re just proud of that. But they probably had meltdowns and tears and lost their patience just like the rest of us. No judgment in that. I love to share our fun and creative moments, but those moments are often far outnumbered by ordinary or hard ones. Just don’t compare your real life to anyone else’s highlight reel.

Finally, kids are resilient and it’s good for them to come up with things to play. We don’t have to constantly entertain them. There are times were we all need a little something extra to break up the monotony, especially now. That’s what the activities on this list are for us. If they work for you, great. If not, don’t stress trying to make them happen. Find what works for you and your family. We will all get through this, and hopefully our kids will have some fun memories of this confusing time.