How to keep the kids occupied during lockdown

Surely, we are not the only family out there struggling with this? And in order to keep our family sane I have come up with some fun lockdown activities for the little ones, some of them even include helping with household chores! 

The great thing about under 5’s is you can make anything exciting. My friend has convinced her boy that vacuuming is a great treat and vacuuming after his breakfast is his new favourite activity. Lockdown entertainment is about getting creative with the usually mundane. Keeping little ones busy is not about having the latest toys or spending hours creating home craft activities, besides in 2 working parent families like ours, who has time for that!? It is about making the everyday unique and interesting. 

Our current favourite lockdown activity is helping mum/dad cook the dinner. Be warned, mess will be created, but in our house, that is half the fun. We have been planning meals that encourage tactile learning and involvement. A huge hit for us is chicken schnitzels, we love flouring the chicken, cracking the eggs, dipping the chicken in the eggs and then lastly, crumbing the chicken. My recommendation after doing this though, is to clean up immediately, get the littles ones involved in that also, our little one has become very skilled with a brush and shovel. 

The weather for us has played a large part in having to be creative with our activities. We are an outdoor orientated family and do not let a little thing like rain keep us locked up indoors. A little light rain is the perfect weather for going on adventures and jumping in puddles. We all get rugged up warm in our wet weather gears, which can also be made into a fun game, and go out on rainy scavenger hunts. We must cross raging rivers, (big puddles that pool at the end of our cul de sac), climb tall mountains, (the slight incline on the Hutt River trail). You’d be amazed at how you can make the normal extraordinary.

Another great helpful activity in our house is washing the cars. Little kids love water, bubbles and hoses. Washing cars is like Christmas morning to them. If you had older kids or were feeling brave, you could branch out to washing the house, get some water pistols involved. Maybe try painting their bedrooms a new colour? Get some by-in from them, have them take ownership of the project. Have some fun, use the lockdown time to create some wholesome family memories, whilst still finishing the maintenance to-do-list. 

The perfect wet weather activity for us is sleepovers and pyjama parties. We built forts and blanket beds in the lounge, turn off all the lights, watch movies, play torch games and eat too much popcorn. We bring the movies to our house. Miss 3 Years tells a good spooky story too. We have a baby in the house also, who fortunately seems to be amused by anything and everything, this means though; that between working work home and the baby, Miss 3 does not always get the attention she requires and being able to have this special time with us on a night once baby is in bed has become important to our bond.

 

Lockdown is a challenging time for parents and children alike. It’s often a balancing act between working from home, household chores and childcare. Get creative, get your little ones involved in household tasks. Fundamentally, all your little ones want is your time and undivided attention, the biggest trick we have found is that if you are giving them that, the task becomes secondary.

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