When it comes to keeping kids entertained during a lockdown, there are several helpful activities to try out. Best of all, these are the easier of activities to try, needing minimal preparation or accessories.
Here we offer a list of 10 easy activities that cost nothing to do but will keep your little ones happy and occupied.
- Put on Plays
Plays are a great way to combine reading, writing, dressing up, acting, and singing.
From plotting, writing, and rehearsing, to the final performance, there’s a role for everyone in a play.
Better still, you can make this a regular activity, allocating different parts to each person every time you start a new production!
Plays can be simple or extensive, using what you have to hand or building and creating those all-important costumes and props.
To mix it up, you could always film them, making memories that will last long after lockdown. Interestingly, there are also lots of free play scripts for kids on this amazing site.
- Get out the Jigsaws
Often brought out on those rainy days, jigsaws are not only a challenge but an excellent method of relaxation.
Demanding their sole concentration, jigsaws can be a most valuable tool for children while getting them off their consoles!
By absorbing themselves in a jigsaw, even for just a few minutes per day, this can be a project they can return to regularly throughout the lockdown.
Then, when the jigsaw’s complete, you can even glue it all together and frame it pride of place in the home.
- Start Your Own Book Club
A fantastic way to pass the time, kids are more likely to pick up a book if there’s an incentive to do so. This is especially so for those reluctant or younger readers. So, by making your very own book club, they can get further involved.
Why not let them choose the book of the week/month. Then you can plan a range of fun discussions and activities around that book.
This can include writing their own endings, coloring scenes for the book, or even making food-related to the story.
Better still, why not hold your book club amongst the cushions or on bean bags, putting up some fairy lights and offering drinks and snacks?
- Organizing the Dinner
If you’re trying to be cautious about the amount of food you use during a lockdown, baking may be out the question. Of course, you could make a smaller, healthy dessert using alternative sweeteners, and not use too many ingredients. My kids love to bake so, even while conserving ingredients, we’d still make something small.
However, the kids can still get involved at dinner time by planning the menus and setting up the dining table each night.
A fantastic way of allowing them increased responsibility, this is where they can they take the lead with place settings, utensils, plates, and cups.
Better still, why not encourage them to design their own menu cards, placemats, name cards, and serviettes?
Each week can be a different theme which they can do a little research on beforehand for the design.
- Learn Traditional Cards
With a vast amount of card games to choose from, lockdown is an ideal time to get all the family learning a selection of card games.
Ideal for all ages, kids can benefit immensely from card games, especially as they test those all-important thinking and maths skills.
Using just one traditional deck of cards, a quick search online will yield hundreds of game types including, Go Fish, Slapjack, Klondike Solitaire, War, Crazy Eights, and Play or Pay.
- Make Your Own T-Shirts
Whether using tie-dye kits or sharpie pens with rubbing alcohol, why not challenge your kids to print their own designs?
Whether you use plain t-shirts sitting in the back of the drawers or other cloth types you no longer need, this is a great way to cheer up dull and boring material.
Once you’ve chosen your method, let their imagination soar here. Consider coloring bandanas for the pets, new tea-towels for the kitchen, or even multi-colored socks for the grown-ups!
- Make Your Garden Bird and Bug Friendly
With many kids taking to the safety of their gardens during a lockdown, it’s a fantastic time to create a haven for wildlife.
Making bird feeders is an easy job and one that will offer many days of pleasant bird watching for all ages.
All you need here is a mixture of butter or fat and a handful of seeds. Then you can smear this onto bird-friendly items such as pine cones and coconut halves, hanging them somewhere safe.
To encourage the bugs in your garden, kids can spend a great deal of time making their very own bug hotel.
Anything bug friendly in the garden such as leaves, sticks, pine cones, bamboo, and bark can be placed into broken plant pots, pallets, or plastic bottles.
- Sew a Family Quilt
An excellent activity for all little hands, by finding as many scrap pieces of materials as possible, kids can use lockdown time to put together a masterpiece quilt.
With just a thread and needle, sewing a bunch of material together is a stress-relieving past time. It also offers a fantastic long-term reward at the end of it.
Let them make up their own patterns and use their own initiative when sewing, allowing them their very own creative input.
This is one activity they can return to again and again during a lockdown, making it as large a project as they want.
- Keep a Daily Journal
With more adults starting to record this unique time, a journal is a fantastic idea for kids to begin during a lockdown.
Not only can it be a fun place to add words, pictures, drawings, and anything else they can stick into it, it’s also a safe way for them to express their thoughts and feelings.
A great keepsake for many years to come, and a means of looking back on this historical time, journals can be as fun as you can make them.
Try offering several ideas for regular inspiration, as well as access to plentiful materials to use in them.
10. Make a Cardboard City
With almost all of us having various cardboard boxes around the home, why not encourage the kids to use these here to the best of their creative ability?
From creating box characters to making dens, the possibility to create a whole new world from such simple items is enormous.
Encourage them to paint, cut, and draw on, cutting out safely and sticking together to further increase their work. You can even turn it into a mini ball pit, kids can get lost in these for hours.
If your kids loved building a cardboard city, why not present them with more challenging building projects? Consider getting a hands-on STEM building kit subscription, so the kids always have fun, exciting, and educational projects to work on.
These should then last for some time, allowing kids to play and add to them over the many weeks of lockdown.
Meg is an author at Cinnamon Hollow. She writes on a variety of topics sharing tips and ideas for daily life.