Surprise, Parents! You’ve become responsible for educating and entertaining your children 24/7, 7 days a week, for at least another 2 months!  No school, virtual learning, no playdates, limited extended-family contact, no trips to Target, Rebounderz or even the neighborhood playground.

How are you doing it??

I interviewed 5 Cool Moms and Dads to find out some of their favorite family activities, for kids of all ages, while we’ve been quarantined to the house…and I’m jealous of all the fun they’re having!

1. Agility Ladders

Made with sidewalk chalk and personalized! (the longer the name, the better!) 😉

Whether you have a sporty kid or not, they’ll love creating their own, homemade agility ladder and then dialing in their footwork with the huge variety of movements that can be done! (see Right for some examples!).

Customize your ladder with your child’s full name or different pictures and colors for each square.  Add another piece to the game by having them run or hop to a specific letter or color then run back to the start.

You can even make a full obstacle course along with the ladder, all with chalk.  After the ladder squares, add some circles about a foot apart for them to hop to.  Then mark some foot and hand marks for frog jumps, bear crawls or crab walks!  Add some single foot jumps with Right and Left Foot marks.  There’s some fun examples of those here.

2. Nature Walks!

Many trails and parks are closed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the nature around your neighborhood.  One fun activity a mom of a young toddler often plays is Scavenger Hunt or I-Spy while going on walks to point out different animals and plants while they are outside! (Although, as you can tell, flowers aren’t a favorite on the Hunt list!!).

You can choose different themes for every scavenger hunt like colors, letters, inside, outside, animals, textures and more!

3. Wet & Wild with the hose!

Got a wild child at home?  Nothing is more fun and gets out more energy than playing with the hose outside!!  As long as you don’t mind a wet, messy, muddy child…but finish with a final hose-down and bathtime is covered, right?! :).

Watering the plants, making a Water Table, and playing in the sprinkler are some top favorites.  Add a bucket of bubbly, soapy water with a sponge for all the fun, sudsy cleaning of things, which kids always love!

Some other hose games include:

• Limbo: have the water spraying in a big arc for them to walk under like a limbo-bar, then bring the arc down a little lower, and a little lower…until they get soaked!
• Hose tag: instead of using your hand to tag, the “it” person tries to catch the runner with the hose water!

Also nothing feels better than a hose-down after a tough, sweaty family workout!

4. Sidewalk Chalk Designs!

If you haven’t already noticed this trend popping up around Facebook, it’s a super fun way to make your child feel like an abstract artist with just painters tape and sidewalk chalk!

First, lay down a square or rectangle with the tape, then start taping lines directly across the shape from one end to the other in all different directions.  Then, get to coloring!  Color in each block of space with different colors and once they’re all filled in, pull the tape away to reveal the masterpiece!!

This could make for a fun learning opportunity about colors, shapes, types of triangles, and counting too!

I have also seen parents transfer this idea onto a blank canvas with a few paint colors that match your interior – let your child paint the different sections, reveal their canvas masterpiece, and you’ve got some unique art to hang!

 

5. Baking Soda & Vinegar Experiments

If your kids love science, one parent shared this site with us!

But their favorite activity so far has been “Fizzy Rainbow Science”, using super easy ingredients and just messy enough to be fun for the kids but not too crazy for the parents!!

Cover the bottom surface of a dish or pan with baking soda and fill a few different containers with vinegar and food-dye, have a few different color options!  Then, using a turkey-baster or any suction-type tool, lift the colored vinegar out and start dripping and squirting it onto the baking soda dish.

As it fizzes and bubbles up, kids will be amazed and it gives the opportunity to talk about colors, making new colors, and the five-senses!

Extend the activity time even further by letting them play in the colorful foam with their plastic toys afterwards!!

 

If you need me, I’ll be doing all of these activities on my own…they look so much fun! Thank you to the OP Family who shared some of their favorite Quarantine activities with us as well as photos of our adorable, favorite future-members!

Try out one of these fun activities and tag us in your post with @crossfitop!!