Almost a year into this pandemic, many of us still have our children at home for huge chunks of time while. Even in places where schools are in session, we’ve got school holidays and occasional shutdowns to contend with — leaving us constantly wondering, “Is school going to be canceled tomorrow?” at regular intervals. And while we sometimes feel like we’re used to this “new normal,” there are still days when our kids alternate between whining “I’m bored!” with literally climbing the walls.
The truth is, we need a lot of options in our arsenal if we’re going to keep our children busy and their minds stimulated for the foreseeable future. Many companies, teachers, nonprofits, museums, and other creators have realized this, though, and we’re reaping the rewards of their efforts: tons of online classes, at-home activity kids, videos, and games for kids to play.
Parents, teachers, and officials alike are worried about a potential “brain drain” due to coronavirus-inspired school closures. “Wide-scale learning loss could be among the biggest impacts coronavirus has on children in America,” Betsy Zorio, vice president of U.S. programs at Save the Children, told SheKnows when the shutdown first began in March. “With an unprecedented number of school closures already announced and many more expected, ensuring that children can continue to learn is essential.”
So what can we do? We’ll try our best to stick to the online curriculum our schools give us. If they’re lucky, most kids will only know the COVID-19 pandemic as a time when grownups messed with their school schedules and made them get a ton of screentime. It’s our job to keep it that way — while also making sure their brains don’t rot.
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A version of this story was originally published March 12, 2020.
Here are some great ways to entertain, educate, and distract our kids at home for as long as we’re in this thing.
Subscribe & Tinker
A subscription kit like KiwiCo solves two problems. Once you’ve chosen what kind of subscription suits your kid by interest and age — art, STEM, travel, etc. — they take care of deciding what to do and give you the supplies with which to do it.
Dive into a Book Series
This could be the long block of time we always dreamed of having as kids in which to dive completely into a series of books. Get them into something truly addictive and you won’t hear a peep until dinnertime. (And thank goodness for eBooks and audiobooks, for anyone who can’t head out to the bookstore right now.)
Re-create Summer Camp All Year Long
Some kids would really like their video classes if only they were led by people who understand how to be dynamic and fun on camera. The counselors at Camp Supernow are those people, and they’re leading small group “cabins” as after-school programs all year long. Yes, the kids meet on Zoom, but they’re going to be dancing, making crafts, playing silly games, and going on field trips through the screen too. Pricing starts at $89 for a four-week session that meets once a week, and that also includes access to short, daily all-camp Super Shows.
Playzone-fit Stepping Stones
You haven’t forgotten how fun it was to play “hot lava” in a playground or your own living room, have you? These special plastic blocks make the game considerably safer, and offer more opportunities to strategize without having to move the couch.
Doodle With the Pros
Elephant & Piggie author and illustrator Mo Willems began inviting kids (virtually) into his art studio, with the help of the Kennedy Center, for daily Lunch Doodles at the start of the pandemic.
Know When to Fold ‘Em
The art of origami must have been invented by people with a lot of time and patience. Even if you have neither of those things, you and your kids can try a few new paper creations. Art-supply brand Faber-Castell offers a few instructional videos for you on their site, and YouTube has thousands more.
Dive Deep Into American History (and Your Own)
Today’s situation has us thinking about times in our country’s history when things were much worse. Ancestry.com wants to help you teach your kids about important moments, like the Civil War, the Trail of Tears, and the Great Depression, with free resources such as lesson plans and access to census archives on AncestryK12.com. Your kids might also have fun browsing through the old newspapers via spinoff site Newspapers.com.
If you get so into this project you want to do more research into your own family history, you can go ahead and subscribe to Ancestry.com, too.
Go on a Scavenger Hunt
This is the absolute best way to get your kids to quietly concentrate on something without your help. Pinterest is filled with printable scavenger hunts for your house, your backyard, and the highway, should you guys break free for a road trip. This is an oldie but goody we made ourselves.
Become Mad Scientists
You may not want to turn your kitchen into a full-on laboratory at the moment, but a few safe science experiments might liven things up. National Geographic Kids offers videos and written instructions for hands-on lessons that can wow both you and your new pupils. There’s also a book of these experiments available for offline fun.
Go Wild
Rather than introducing your kids to the strange exhibit of humanity that is Tiger King, you might instead want them to experience an African safari from the safety of your living room. There are live safari tours streaming from South Africa on WildEarth.tv twice a day, with highlight reels available anytime on the site. If you sign up for a live safari in advance, a naturalist will be able to answer your kids’ questions directly via Skype messenger during the tour. You can also watch live webcams from other game preserves at Africam and Explore.org.
Khan Academy Kids
The company that makes this free educational app for kids ages 2-7 has responded to the coronavirus crisis by creating a special homeschooling guide that actually covers students from preschool through high school. Follow their scheduling advice, or just hand over the iPad and let your kids learn on their own schedule.
Visit a National Park or a Farm (Online)
Virtual tours never seemed so inviting! The websites of national parks — Yellowstone, for example — usually have virtual tours set up on their websites. But you can also head to for tours as well (and this way you skip all the “closed for COVID-19” signs). If your kids tend toward earthier, more practical tastes, they may instead like to go on a dairy farm tour.
Visit a Museum (Online)
Google Arts & Culture’s Collections section gathers exhibits from major museums (from MoMA to the Uffizi to the National Museum of New Delhi) that we certainly can’t visit right now. It’s rather nice to visit these beautiful works of art without getting aching museum feet.
Caribu With the Grandparents
Grandparents aren’t too pleased with this social distancing thing either. This app solves the problem of those painfully awkward Facetime calls when no one knows what to talk about and lets kids color and read together.
Experiment With Online Learning
Online learning site Outschool just announced it will offer free classes for kids affected by the recent public school closures — up to $100K worth of classes in total. And honestly, Outschool was made for days like this. Well, actually, it was made to give parents and kids options for extracurricular classes beyond what’s available in their hometown, but this is certainly a good time to take advantage. You can sign your kids up for all sorts of courses, ranging from sewing to chemistry, video-game design to singing, and they’ll get to join small, live classes with real teachers for a set number of weeks.
Have Them Train to Be Your Personal Chefs
Little kids can be in charge of planning meals and decorating menus, but if you have a kid old enough to read and follow directions, we suggest you empower them to make a meal for the family. Food Network has some ideas for cooking with kids, and there are tons of cookbooks around to help with this as well.
Keep Making Them Your Personal Chef
We like this idea so much, we’re adding more related ideas. Also the kids meal kit service Raddish Kids announced it was giving away free Swedish Eats cooking kits (Swedish meatballs, Scandinavian smorgasbord and Nordic cinnamon buns are on the menu) in response to our sudden homeschooling needs. They’ve already sold out, but you can sign up to be notified when they’re back in stock. Or you can get your own ingredients and have your kids follow along with their Facebook cooking class. For more kids recipe ideas, visit America’s Test Kitchen Young Chef’s Club, which has more cooking videos and recipes.
Watch & Play PBS Kids
You no doubt already know how super-educational all the shows on PBS Kids are. When you have your kids play games related to the shows they watch, either online or on the PBS Kids app, they become a little less passive in their entertainment and can apply all the stuff they learned.
Turn Their Bedroom into a Classroom
Kids thrive on familiar routines, so how about encouraging them to re-create their school life at home? You can get out some paper or poster board to have them decorate their walls like their classroom, or even purchase some of the decorative tools teachers use. Maybe young ones will want to organize their toys as if they’re students in this school. The more involved this game gets, the busier (and more comfortable) they’ll feel.
Combine Online & Real-World Learning
Of course, iPad games are fun, but we don’t want our kids so sucked into the screen they forget their three-dimensional bodies. That’s why the Osmo tool is so brilliant. Using a mirror gadget attached to the iPad’s camera, the educational Osmo games involve physical objects you place on the table in front of you. Kids of all ages can play games that teach reading, coding, art, engineering and more.
Turn Them into Multimedia Artists
Crayola.com has tons of craft ideas for parents and kids on its site, as well as lesson plans for teachers. Even if you’re not quite ready to give a lecture on the meaning of Robert Rauschenberg’s work, you certainly know how to hand your kids a stack of magazines, catalogs, and newspapers — along with some scissors, paint, and glue. It might be a pain to clean up later, but multi-step projects mean prolonged quiet time.
Explore Other Civilizations
Or, should we say, Civilisations. The BBC created an augmented reality app to go with its expansive 2018 art history series. Museums may be out of reach right now, but your kids can still explore ancient works of art from all angles with the help of a mobile device.
Zen Out & Color
Take a tip from generations of substitute teachers. Sometimes, all you need is a great selection of coloring pages and some brightly colored markers.
Mine YouTube for Educational Gems
We usually think of TED talks as classrooms for grownups, but older kids will understand many of the videos on TEDed’s YouTube pages. Most are only around 5-6 minutes long, but if you select a whole playlist, say “Our Changing Climate” or “Exploring the Senses,” you’ve got longer stretches of solid educational viewing. AsapSCIENCE and John Green’s CrashCourse are other educational channels that give YouTube a good name.
Make Them Card Sharks
Long before our phones made Solitaire and online poker addictive, kids were shuffling and stacking to while away the hours during winter breaks. In case you forgot how to play cards in real life, BicycleCards.com has some refreshers. Along the way, your kids will learn math, problem-solving, and negotiating skills.
Launch an Animation Studio
Have your mini movie moguls bring out their action figures, Play-doh, and any kind of video device and create their own feature film. You can instruct them to begin by writing a script and storyboarding, or they can improvise the whole thing. If they’d like to try their hand at stop-motion animation, there are tutorials here.
Brush Up on Those Math, Er, Gaming Skills
Just don’t tell them they’re practicing math. Sites like SplashLearn let kids think they’re lucking out on screen time, when really they’re learning essentials for the Common Core. We have more suggestions of educational apps for kids here.
Puzzle It Out
Maybe the simple act of putting together a 1000-piece puzzle doesn’t teach much more than patience. If that concerns you, put on an educational podcast for them to listen to while they sort through those tiny pieces.
Break Out the Board Games
If you’ve got more than one kid, or if you’re not quarantined from your neighbors, now is the time to bring out Monopoly, Clue, and everything else in your arsenal. Why else do you own them? Check out our list of favorite family board games here.
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