Ideas to Keep Kids Active & Safe during the Pandemic
It can be difficult for busy parents to come up with ways to keep kids active and safe during the pandemic. You go from dropping kids off at daycare or school to now becoming the daycare providers and teachers. If that is not something you’re used to, then it can become a struggle. Here are some fun tips and ideas for how you can keep your children, at any age, active and safe during these uncertain times.
Create a Daily Schedule
According to Safety.com, kids are already on a schedule when going to daycare or school, so create one within your home. Here are some ideas to get you going:
- Collect any notebooks, pencils, pens, paper, headphones, and items before getting started.
- Break up the learning periods with snack times, breaks, and recess.
- For teenagers, give a 15 minute break in the morning, hour for lunch and another 15 minute break in the afternoon to help keep them energized and focused.
- Set up a dedicated learning space in a community area of the home like the kitchen, but avoid the bedrooms.
Safety.com also offers a helpful sample schedule to help get started.
Incorporate English, Math and Science to Keep Kids’ Minds Sharp
With schools being closed, it is not a time for kids to think they are on summer vacation. Instead, keep kids on the same schedule they were on in daycare or school.
- Keep up with their schoolwork and see what their teacher has assigned.
- For English, set aside time for interactive reading where your child reads to you, but with some added drama and flair to make the stories come alive.
- For Science, do some age appropriate experiments in the kitchen or go on a nature walk.
- For Math, practice fractions and percentages while doing laundry, find a toy cash-register to help count money, or count cars to teach probability.
Awaken Kids’ Creativity
Break up the day by getting your kid’s creativity juices flowing with art, music and physical education activities. For physical education, kids between the ages of 3-5 should be active for a total of 3 hours each day at different levels,: light, moderate and vigorous. For kids ages 6-12, 60 minutes of physical activity is recommended daily to help strengthen their hearts, muscles and bones. The exercise should be vigorous 3 days out of the week where they can either do 5-10 minutes of play a day or 30 minutes once or twice a day. Here are some ideas for outdoor activities:
- Obstacle course
- Play a sport
- Hide and Seek
- Egg hunt (can do indoors)
- Scavenger Hunt
Here are some ideas for indoor activities:
- Have a dance party
- Sing songs
- Paper plate badminton (use paper plates to bat at balloons)
- Color hunt (hide colorful objects around the house and have the kids bring back the color you name by jumping, skipping, crawling or dancing to the color).
- Paint a photograph
Keep Your Kids Up-to-Date Digitally
Not all learning comes out of a book, but from apps, too. Find educational links, or apps, to keep kids virtually entertained and experience other ways of learning.
- Kids could learn a new language
- Schedule video chats with friends (and your parent-friends)
- Video chat Grandma and Grandpa for a bedtime story
There are so many opportunities and options for keeping your kids active and safe during COVID-19. If you have any questions or concerns, contact us for further information. We’re all in this together even if we have to separate for a while.
