Around Home: March 30-April 5
coming up with enough activities throughout the week to keep your child entertained can be a chore! We’ve rounded up a few suggestions to help ease the boredom for parents and children.
Missoula County Public Schools has done an incredible job of providing information and activities to supplement their school curriculum and keep children entertained. For those who prefer routine, they’ve also included suggestions for age appropriate daily schedules. You can view that information here.
Toddler or Preschool Age:
It’s spring and the birds are chirping! Give those birds something to chirp about by making home-made bird feeders with your toddler/preschooler. Making bird-feeders is likely a craft that you remember doing as a kid because it’s simple and you can use items that your have inside and outside your home. Need a few examples? Here’s a tutorial for a traditional pine cone bird feeder or a few more elaborate bird feeders.
DIY Pizza Kits from the Bridge Pizza! That’s right, Bridge Pizza has put together this fantastic take, create and bake pizza kit that your toddler/preschooler will LOVE!
Photo Credit: The Bridge Pizza https://www.facebook.com/pg/BridgePizza/posts/
Elementary Age:
It’s likely your kiddos are missing their friends so why not have a virtual play date and play bingo! If you don’t already have a Zoom account, it’s FREE and a great way to connect with people. Here’s a great website with bingo card templates. You can use items at home to mark your cards!
Get GROWing! Spring is here and it’s a great time to start a garden. Earlier this month we featured an article on ‘Sowing Seeds with Supplies from Home’. Did you know that you can even re-grow vegetables? Here’s a great post about which vegetables you can re-grow.
Middle or High School Age:
Have your tween or teen create a tik tok video on how to wash your hands with the “HandClap” song by Fitz and the Tantrums.
Home Economics is no longer a thing of the past! Have your tween or teen make two meals each week. Here’s a great cookbook for teens that you can get on Amazon! Missing a few food items? Check out this article that includes tips, recipes and substitutions for certain items.
Any Age:
Write letters, color pictures, or make cards for loved ones, friends or essential workers. You can safely “deliver” the letters or works of art by taking a photo and sending through email, text, or social media. Here’s a great template you can print!
Learn about other states! Have your child pick a state each day or week to research. Your child can use encyclopedias or other state books to research the information if you don’t have access to or don’t want to use a computer. Here’s a great template you can print.
For the Grown Ups:
“Date night, what’s that?” As a parent, squeezing in time for a date night can sometimes be impossible and with the public health crisis, you’re likely feeling this way even more! 406 Families Co-Founder, Tiffany Williams, and her husband found a way to make it happen—even with their kids at home! Here’s how she did it:
“My husband and I go on regular date nights every two weeks. We need that time to disconnect from the challenges of life and focus on each other. Our date nights usually consist of dinner at a nice restaurant or maybe a movie at the dine-in theater. This week it looked a little different. There was no teenage babysitter lining her pockets for watching my kids and feeding them frozen pizza. There was no driving to a restaurant, debating if we should have made a reservation. Instead, I ordered take out from one of our favorite restaurants. While I was picking it up, my husband made a pallet in my son's room, moved our bedroom TV in there, and told our kids they were having a movie night. They could watch movies for as long as they wanted until they fell asleep, but they were not allowed to come outside the room and bother us. We rented a movie ("It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood") and ate dinner. Then we mixed a couple of drinks and ate a chocolate chip skillet cookie topped with ice cream. It was different, but equally wonderful. This tradition might stick around after COVID-19 goes away.”