It’s not necessary for our national lockdown to put a damper on the school holiday spirit, in fact there’s quite a few things you can do that’s both fun, entertaining and educational. Payflex.co.za and futurelearn.com have some awesome ideas of how you can take the boredom out of lockdown. READ MORE
Tour the world’s leading museums
Although the coronavirus has limited your ability to travel, you can still visit cultural sites online using Google Arts and Culture. The tech company has 3,468 virtual museum tours from around the world, along with history and context for many pieces of art. Some of the museums you can tour include the Louvre in Paris, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The British Museum in London, the Acropolis in Athens, the Vatican in Rome and The Smithsonian in Washington.
Board games and puzzles
There’s nothing better than a challenging puzzle or good old-fashioned board game. Loved by both young and old, these are an ideal way to pass the time as a family.
Baking and cooking
Lockdown provides the ideal opportunity to hone your and your family’s cooking skills. Cooking is comforting, brings families together and teaches valuable life skills. Come up with theme days to create a sense of fun and excitement, collectively cook a delicious family meal, allow your children to experiment in the kitchen, and let your kids help you meal plan.
Get Active
Getting active not only improves physical health but can have a significant impact on our mental health. Make exercise in your home a daily family affair. There are hundreds of apps and websites offering both free and paid exercise streaming options from yoga, to Pilates to dancing.
Crafts
Crafts provide endless ways to keep your family entertained during lockdown. Pinterest and Instagram offer a wealth of ideas of crafts to do with your children regardless of their age or interests. Many of these exercises are ideal for learning, problem-solving as well as important in the development of fine motor skills in smaller children.
Gardening
Whether you have a garden, balcony, or backyard, gardening is an ideal activity for both parents and children. Whilst trying to minimize your trips to the grocery store, plant some herbs and vegetables that you can use in your daily cooking. Growing herbs and vegetables is also a fantastic educational opportunity for children. In addition to teaching them responsibility, gardening is an ideal activity to reduce stress, frustration and anxiety.
Create a scavenger hunt
A scavenger hunt is an ideal way for keeping small children (or older kids if they still have a sense of adventure) entertained. You can even encourage your kids to create their own hunts in an effort to encourage creativity and out-the-box thinking. Decorate areas of your home with little surprises and create clues for children to guess where things are hidden.
Socialise virtually
The popularity of apps such as Houseparty and Zoom have skyrocketed in the face of social distancing. Instead of putting social events like Friday night drinks, family lunches, and playdates on hold, these apps are helping people of all ages stay connected and retain their social lives during isolation. For the extroverts among us, this is a critical way of staying entertained during lockdown.
Create home obstacle courses
This is one of the more hardcore ways to keep your family entertained during a lockdown. Children need to burn off some of those seemingly endless energy supplies. Unfortunately, with parks and playgrounds closed, parents need to get creative. Obstacle courses are a fun way to keep your children active. Get creative and use various household objects including dining chairs, cushions, boxes and tables. Create obstacles for kids to climb, go under, wind around, crawl through and jump.
Decluttering as a way to keep your family entertained during lockdown
All this extra time at home makes it an ideal time for decluttering and tidying. This is a cathartic and mood-boosting activity that the whole family can get involved in. Make the tasks fun by encouraging each person to go through their own drawers and cupboards, and create piles of what will be donated, sold and thrown away.
Some other fun ideas by futurelearn.com include:
Learn a language
Always wanted to speak Italian? Intrigued by Norwegian? Think that Mandarin will be useful for work, or perhaps German?
Why not learn a new language? Online tools give you everything you need to help you brush up on vocabulary, and test out pronunciation.
Solve a mystery
True crime fans can immerse themselves in mysteries or even start solving them. There are plenty of online communities like Reddit’s Unresolved Mysteries, where mystery fans get together to swap theories and combine information to try to get to the bottom of old cold cases.
Read or listen to a book
If your new year’s resolution was to read more, you can definitely achieve that this year.
You can finally tackle the huge stack of novels next to your bed or (if your bedside is actually pretty tidy) you can find something interesting on Many Books. If you prefer audiobooks, try out Audible for free.
Sources: Read the full articles at https://payflex.co.za/blog/13-ways-to-keep-your-family-entertained-during-lockdown/ and https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/50-free-things-you-can-do-during-lockdown