Supporting Our Kids At Home Through COVID-19

It’s hard to know what to feel during this time, let alone know what to write about on a blog post. I know that feelings of anxiety and fear are heightened. And even though we may not vocalize it, our children sense these feelings and feel these emotions from us. I think now more than ever, it’s important to give our kids consistency, structure, love and support just as WE ourselves need those things.

As an elementary school teacher and a mom at home with two children, I feel that what I can offer are ways to support our children through this time. I can give activity ideas to keep both kids and parents sane at home over the next few weeks!

This kids schedule has been circulating around the internet and it is a great resource for parents. What I have done is broken down the day into four main categories: exploration time, academic time, outdoor time, and down time. And I’ve tried to give ideas that need little to no prep in advance.

Exploration time:

-Plant seeds and watch them grow (we luckily had some left over from last year)

-Sensory bins

-Build towers

-Make something out of cardboard

-Paint and play with colours

-Draw a self-portrait

-Make an instrument out of things you find around the house

-Building challenges: build an animal out of LEGO, make the tallest building with just 50 pieces of LEGO

Academic time: My children are quite young and so academic time and exploration time are almost one in the same. But with older children, you might want to think about some of the following activities.

Literacy:

-Read a book to your child or have your child read you a book.

-Play Boggle or Scrabble to practice words

-Make a mailbox out of cardboard and write letters or postcards to each other.

-Write How-tos (if you make cookies, build a tower, make something out of cardboard, get your child to write step by step HOW you did it)

Number Sense:

-Count (counting forwards/backwards, skip counting, halving numbers, etc.)

-Use objects to count, add, subtract, makes groups of, multiple, divide. What I mean here is to grab an object around the house (pasta noodles, small toys, or even raisins) and use these items to add (2+3=5) or multiple (2 groups of 3 =6). You get the idea?

-Think Math - pose an open-ended question for your kids to answer. That way they can come at it from any math level. (Example: The answer is 9 penguins, what is the problem?) So many possibilities!

-Math Games with dice or cards

-Bake something and talk about fractions

Outdoor time: I know for my own sanity, I need to get out of the house and have some fresh air. This is JUST as important for our children! It’s as easy as going for a walk. If you need some more purpose/focus to your walk, take a Nature walk and pick up pieces of nature along the way. These pieces are great to make art with later on. Bring a paper and pencil for a look draw (see down time for explanation), do crayon rubs with leaves or other objects, or make collages with your findings. You can also amp up a walk by doing a Nature Scavenger Hunt!

Down time/ Quiet time: It’s so important for us all to have downtime in the day. Time to rest our brain, rest our body and take a break. And I’m not saying to turn on the TV. There are so many ways to have down time other than the TV. Don‘t get me wrong, my daughter watches TV here and there but I find it is also a trigger for her tantrums and attitude change. Here are some other ways to give us all a little quiet time:

1. Audio books: if you don’t have any book tapes/CDs at home, there are so many books read on YouTube. Let your child lie on the floor, close their eyes, turn out the lights and just listen to a book being read to you. AND don’t be afraid to listen too! Here are some links:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Good Egg by Jory John

The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle

Braids by Robert Munsch

2. Read: this is one of our favourite activities around our house and I notice that my daughter craves this time when she’s tired or needs to calm down. Snuggle up in a comfy chair and read some books.

3. Sketch: Take some paper and pencils/crayons/markers/pens or whatever you have around the house and draw. One of my favourite activities is to do a LOOK DRAW. That, like it sounds, means to draw something you’re looking at. Go outside, look and sketch at a tree, or simply look out the window and sketch the cars driving by.

4. Tell Stories: I am not great at this one but my husband is. He simply starts telling our daughter stories; usually of things that have happened in our life. My favourite story he’s told her is the one of our son being born. This story has lead to her pretending she has a baby in her tummy. It’s amazing how fascinated our kids are with the stories of our lives.

5. Kids Yoga: This is another calm and quiet activity to allow everyone to BREATHE!

Over the next couple of days I am going to continue to post ideas, templates, and games. If you have any questions or other ideas you’d like to share with me, I welcome it all!

Before I sign off, below is a St. Patrick's Day Scavenger Hunt that I have done for years in my Grade 1,2,3 classroom. This year, I plan on doing it at home with my almost three-year old. Print, cut the clues, hide them around the house and hide a "treat" of some sort at the end! Our treat this year will be green Jell-O.

St. Patrick's Day Scavenger Hunt:

Take care of yourselves, stay healthy and happy learning and exploring!