On Monday, 23 March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa officially announced that South Africa will go into lockdown for a period of 21 days. During this time, many of us will stay home safe by self-isolating as much as we can. For those of us with children, we now are left to come up with ways to entertain the kids during this period.
Try not to let the uncertainty of the Covid-19 virus keep you and your family from making the most of this time together and having fun. We've rounded some activities to keep everyone entertained and busy while being stuck indoors. Let the activities begin!
- Demonstrate the importance of hand washing
It's never been easy to convince children to voluntarily care about personal hygiene and cleanliness. During this unprecedented time, we need to try and communicate with our kids the significance of social distancing and the power of hand washing to flatten the curve. The first activity is related to this very issue, how to teach your children about the seriousness of hand washing and hygiene in the current COVID-19 outbreak. Of course, we don't want to scare our children so these efforts to educate them must be age-appropriate. Thankfully, a kindergarten teacher seen in a viral video has come up with a brilliant activity to demonstrate the effectiveness of proper hand washing.
You will need two shallow dishes, some liquid soap and some pepper, yes, pepper. Fill the one shallow dish with a bit of soap. Fill the second dish with some water and then begin to add pepper to the dish filled with water to cover the surface of the water.
Now to explain how soap repels COVID-19 (the pepper). Get once one of the kids to put their index finger into the dish with pepper water. Then show them that as they take their finger out that they have the "virus" on their finger. Then ask them to dip their index finger into the soap dish and wiggle it around.
Now they must dip their soapy finger into the pepper dish and watch as the pepper moves "magically" to the edge of the dish away from the soap. In this illustration, the pepper acts as the "virus" and you can then demonstrate how effective soap is in "repelling" the virus. Of course, this may not be the most scientifically accurate demonstration but it helps explain the importance of hand washing in an age appropriate way and helps explain the focus on good hygiene.
2. Flight school with paper planes
This all-ages, DIY target game is great to create some healthy competition at home. The idea is to build a DIY target that your paper planes can fly through and rack up points for how many planes you can fly through the holes.
Take some cardboard that you have lying around the house or collapse an old box. Lay the box flat and cut out three holes in the box of varying sizes. These holes will be labelled with a ten, twenty and a thirty as the holes get smaller and the flying difficulty increases. These numbers represent the amount of points scored as you whizz your paper plane through the targets.
There are plenty of simple paper plane tutorials that you can look up to match your child's paper building skill level. Once you've cut out your targets, build a stand with leftover cardboard or merely prop your targets up, in between two chairs and let the flying begin. Play in rounds of five and tally the scores as you go along to find the ultimate pilot!
3. Make and then build a puzzle
While building puzzles can train mental agility, making your own puzzle is also a great way to exercise creative ability. Simply let your kids draw a picture on a white piece of paper – encourage them to let their imaginations run wild. Then, glue it to a sturdy piece of cardboard (Bristol board works well); allow it to dry overnight – if you want to save time, let your children draw directly onto the board. Next, on the back of the board, outline the shape of puzzle pieces. Cut the pieces out with a good pair of scissors, mix them up and let the puzzle building begin!
4. DIY project: personalised stepping stones
Thinking about doing a DIY project together? Let your kids get creative with personalised stepping stones to spruce up the garden.
All you need is some surgical gloves, quick-set cement, a can of spray-and-cook, a tin-foil pie plate, and any decorative stones or marbles you want to include. There are loads of tutorials online, but the basic steps are to spray-and-cook your pie plate, fill it with the premixed cement, pat it down and smooth it off and then let your kids lay their decorations in any pattern they like using gloves for protection.
Let the stepping stones set at room temperature as per the instructions on the cement bag, and then turn them out, lay them down, and enjoy the look of joy on your children’s faces! This may be a rather involved process but don't be anxious about taking on bigger projects together. Following the steps in these online tutorials will leave you with something to be proud of as you liven up your garden space.
5. Picnic Indoors
If you can’t go outside for a picnic, then bring the picnic indoors! Get a few easy to snack on foods such as sandwiches, juice boxes, dried fruit, biltong, and rice crackers. Add these to a picnic basket or re-usable material shopping bag (get the kids involved and let them pack it); don’t forget to add paper plates and napkins. Move the furniture out of the way in your lounge and lay a huge picnic blanket and some cushions on the floor. And, then, let the picnic begin!
Not all public parks are closed so should you choose to go outside and enjoy some fresh air, be mindful of the impact of interacting in public space. Remember the suggestions for social distancing and keep away from other people. Make sure to sanitize everybody's hands before interacting with any public toilets or This will also be the perfect time to remind the kids about the pepper-virus demonstration and make sure to wash hands before exiting and entering your home to curb the potential threat of spreading infection.
6. Family-photo bingo for the little ones
This is a great game to help your children, especially toddlers, learn more about their family. For each child participating, give them nine family photos (make sure you include one for mommy, daddy, grandparents on each side, great grandparents that might still be alive and any aunts or uncles) and arrange them, randomly, into rows of three. Also hand each child nine checkers pieces, playing cards or cardboard squares and ask them to hold onto these.
Next, randomly call out the names of the family members and allow your child to find the right picture and cover it with paper/checkers piece. Whoever gets three in a row, wins.
7. Family tree fun
As a follow up to doing a family-photo bingo this great activity helps you create a family tree together. You will need paper, some markers and finger paints in various colours. Draw a simple tree on a large piece of paper. Now everyone can decorate the tree as they dip their thumbs into the finger paints and create the "leaves" with their thumbprint.
Alternatively, everyone can do their own tree on smaller sheets of paper. This will ensure there is no messing with each of the kid's creative vision as they have free reign to design their tree how they wish. You can then come together to add the names of each of the members of your extended family.
If you want to involve the grandparents but can't be with them physically due to self-isolation, why not video call them to share some of their stories and to get the kids to present their creations. This is not only fun but another great history lesson to get together and share stories of your family.
8. Visit virtual museums
Many of us are self-isolating and can't visit museums and galleries but did you know that you can explore exhibitions online? Google Arts and Culture has partnered with museums and galleries all over the world to bring us digital access to the world's top exhibits. There are wild and wonderful discoveries to be made and ancient worlds to be explored. This is an activity that is fun for the whole family and won't cost a cent. Click here to check out our post on the top five family-friendly museums to visit.
9. The classic movie marathon
After all the activity of the day has calmed down, curl up together and chill out with a movie. Together, as a family, make a list of all the films you want to watch – even if it’s that one that the family has seen a thousand times. Then, set a day, get some treats, bring the blankets and pillows from your bedroom (why not make a bed in front of the TV) and let the marathon begin.
