Hello Friends,
Today's blogpost is about none other than...COVID-19. This is a term we have seen a lot of lately and we are all suffering the consequences of it. Many of you are now forced to homeschool since your children are now out of school. Many of you are wondering, what you should do with your children during this time now that you have to homeschool and you have tons of time to spend with your children. Since, I am a teacher I thought I would post a few ideas to help those of you that are wracking your brain trying to come up with new ideas on how to teach your kids during this difficult time. Fear not! I have answers!
1. Go on a bear hunt
There are two ways to do this. You can do it in your home and put up the pictures on the wall or floor like these and these. This is a really fun game that will keep your children engaged and will call upon them to use their imagination. Also, a lot of people in different neighborhoods are putting bears in their windows, like this one so when the children go walking through the neighborhood the kids can find a bear. It's a great idea to combat boredom and to fuel young imaginations!
2. Life skills
Okay, so this may not be an idea that is geared towards the littles, but for those of you with middle school, junior high and certainly high school kids this is a great time to teach them those oh-so-important life skills. Things that as you go about your day to day life, you may not think about, because it is something that you as an adult already do and you may have forgotten that somebody had to teach you these things in the first place. Things like grocery shopping, money management and how to create a budget, time management, how to sew a button and other important life skills that they will need at some point or another. Now you may say that some skills are not easy to teach them right now with social distancing becoming the new norm and with everything being shut down right now, but grocery stores are still open. Think about how often your child drags along idly while they are engrossed in their phones or on their tablets. Meanwhile, they are missing out on an important life lesson, dragging behind you while you shop. Instead of lugging the tablet with you, go tablet free the next couple of times you go to the grocery store and teach them how to shop. How the store is layed out, how to check out and how to pay. It is a good idea to go to different locations of the same store (Wal-mart for instance) to show them that they may vary slightly in where they put stuff, but the layout is typically the same and so they can learn where things are in different stores for when they go shopping on their own. Also, it is a good idea to bring them to both a self-checkout lane and a lane that actually has a cashier in it. They can learn how to use a self-checkout lane and if something goes wrong, have them ask for assistance, after all you won't always be around to ask for them. Also, you can teach them how to key in something like produce, if they ever go shopping on their own. A lane with an actual cashier is good practice too because they get experience with talking to an actual clerk and if the clerk is friendly enough, it boosts their social skills by getting into a conversation with the clerk (also, they can talk to someone other than you, because you know social distancing). Either is good for them learning how to pay. I suggest having them pay with a credit card, especially now that credit cards have new chip technology instead of swiping like you used to. Also, learning how to pay with cash helps them work on counting money and making sure they receive the right amount of change. Bonus if the clerk double charges them or gives them the wrong amount of change back, because then they learn how to resolve a dispute with their receipt. Many lessons to be learned at the grocery store. Time management, money management and sewing on a button are all skills they will need some day especially for high schoolers going into college. Even if they don't go to college, they will still need these skills all the same. There are many more examples, but these are just a few to get you started.
3. Dance!
Hey, if you feel silly or like you have two left feet it doesn't matter because you are in your home and no one is watching! LOL! Anyway, in all seriousness, there are some great songs that you can dance to with your kids that get them dancing and learning at the same time. All of these songs are available on iTunes. Listen and Move, The Boogie Walk and The Freeze by Greg and Steve are all good songs to get your kids to move. Listen and Move is particularly good because it requires kids to listen and pay attention, which is a skill that they all need to learn! The CD, which is called We All Live Together Volume 2, also features The Number Rock, so they can learn their numbers and The Months of the Year in English and Spanish. Why not learn a second language during mandatory quarantine? Another great CD that I recommend is Jack Hartmann's Bop, Pop and Hip-Hop. I use this one all the time with my kids and they love it! Any of Jack Hartmann's CD's are great for getting the kids moving and learning at the same time. The Funky Freeze, Pump It Up Pokey, If You're Happy And You Know It and Teddy Bear Hip-Hop are all of my kids favorites. There are also learning songs on there like ABC Cha-Cha and Letter Sounds A to Z. Jack Hartmann also has many moving videos on YouTube if you need something to get their P.E. time in.
4. Sing!
Again, no need to be self-conscious, you are in your house after all. No need to get fancy because kids love all of the old classics like the ABC's, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, 5 little ducks, 5 little monkeys (anything that includes animals and the number 5, basically), The Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Any children's classic will do and they will sing along with you!
5. Make Music!
My kids love egg shakers! You can use those old Easter eggs you have laying around and some beans, beads or rice and tape them together so littles don't choke on beans and voila! Shaker egg! There are also tons of egg shaker videos on YouTube or there is this one here that I use in my classroom and my kids love it! But you can make music with any thing. If your nerves (and your ears) can handle it, let them bang on pots and pans! Also, do you remember making a guitar with a Kleenex box, paper towel tube and rubber bands? Okay, so a paper towel tube may be hard to come by these days because people are hoarding them in preparation for the zombie apocalypse I guess, but if you run across one it can be very versatile! Also you can make rain sticks with them. All you need are markers, stickers, cling wrap, beads or beans or something that makes noise and a rubber band. These are great to make music with or can have a very calming effect when tilted from side to side very slowly.
6. Read to them!
My kids love stories. If yours is very little and doesn't seem to sit still for a story, a great tip is to use a puppet! A puppet captures your child's attention and they stay focused on that story the whole time. Don't be afraid to get silly with it and use different voices, puppet or no puppet. My kids favorite book is The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf. They love the wolf voice I do and they love the huffing and puffing. Also, this is a great book to teach about emotions. Of course, if you don't have this book, any old book will do!
7. Learning games
Being that I am a teacher, these make up the majority of my lesson plans. I am going to share a few of them that my kids love! The first game idea is to put down a certain amount of shapes in a circle and the shapes can be any color (any shape can be used). Then you put on some music, I like to use the Funky Freeze song that was mentioned earlier, because it has a natural freeze in it, but any song will do. You and your child walk around in a circle on the shapes. When the music says "freeze" or you pause the song. Your child must name the color of the shape you landed on. Play continues until end of song. I believe I took this idea and tweaked it. My kids love our magnet board and the possibilities are endless! You can use them for songs and fingerplays and also to make up stories. You can print out images off the Internet and glue magnets to them and use these story starters here to help get you started. You can use finger puppet templates found on Pinterest to make magnets like these here or you can make your own from stock images you find on the Internet. Either way they are great for learning. You can make color and shape matching games or go on a scavenger hunt for letters, shapes, numbers and colors. You can also use it to sort shapes. Don't have a magnet board you say? Use your refrigerator! And you can also use refrigerator magnets to help teach them their ABC's. Another great idea is to use any gross motor game. There are many on Pinterest, but the one I like is Shape Hopscotch, found here. Also, 5 little ducks and Lily Pad Number Hop are great games as well!
Last, but not least are Kleenex box games. All you need is an empty Kleenex box and printables from the website the game is featured on. Two great ones are Feed the Polar Bear and Feed Me Numbers. Last but not least I must mention the Pancake Game because my kids love it and they request it! These are just a few, but there are tons of them out there on Pinterest for you to choose from.
8. Dress up/Use your imagination
This one is fairly self-explanatory and it goes without saying that boys and girls alike, my kids LOVE dress-up (what kid doesn't?) Also you can: make up stories, build blanket forts, color on a giant piece of paper (or several small pieces of paper taped together) - this is great if you want a few minutes of peace to save your sanity! Trust me it works! And most importantly, have fun and be silly!
9. Arts and Crafts
You know all of those arts and crafts activities that are sitting on your Pinterest board collecting dust? Now's the time to do them! Any arts and crafts activity that will get you and your little ones imaginations flowing will be just perfect!
10. YouTube
Seriously, there are tons of learning videos on this website, from dance videos that get them up and moving to songs and fingerplays. In times like these YouTube is your best friend!
11. Puzzles and Board Games!
Another self-explanatory one, but I think puzzles and board games get lost and forgotten about in the day and age of iPads, electronics and phones. Now is a great time to reconnect with these old favorites. My kids love doing puzzles and will often do the same ones over and over again! Also many board games don't require batteries.
12. Yoga!
Another YouTube staple. There are TONS of yoga videos on YouTube for kids. In stressful times like these we all need a little yoga for relaxation! Om!
Whew! That is quite a list! I hope you find this exhaustive list quite helpful! If you run out of things to do after reading this list, I don't know what to tell you! Thanks for reading and I'll post something new real soon!
Until next time!
Destiny
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