Make Early Learning Fun!: Creating Fun During Lockdown

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Creating Fun During Lockdown

The spring of 2020 was long and the summer and fall kept it going ... by this winter, anyone who has been cooped up with their kiddos is looking for some new ideas :)

We’ve had a lot of success with cardboard boxes over here ... they have made everything from puppet theaters to step-in wearable race cars to furniture for stuffed animals. And, thanks to Amazon, there are SO many boxes around!

It helped to put together a cart of accessible “art” stuff. There is an organizer of crayons and colored pencils, all kinds of scrap paper, and some recyclables. Included is a few card games, some letter tiles and wipe-off boards.

We’ve added glue, glue sticks, kid scissors and rulers as time has gone on - and scotch tape, which is very popular with our kiddos. The idea is to offer access to some materials which are always “open” for autonomy in creative play.

When you’re looking for more ideas, let your children lead you. They may want to try to do something new ... last week, we tried some wood working in the workshop - just simple sanding and drilling - and sewing with bright threads and big needles, no plan in mind. Cooking or baking is always a hit with the kids here, too. You can search the internet or Pinterest for just about anything :) There are so many ideas out there for easy, inexpensive fun.

Pair an activity to a book for extra fun - even books you don’t have in the house :) YouTube has LOTS of books read aloud, when you’re not comfortable going to a book store or library, and your budget is groaning from adapting to life at home. Follow your child’s interests and become experts on dinosaurs or planets ...

To get you started, here’s some “Camp” activity ideas from my blog ~ tweak these themes to make them “COVID Camp” themes, instead of “Summer Camp” ... pick one and make a day or weekend out of it :)