I was planning to work on this blog post closer to summer, but due to the recent events where we all have our kiddos at home, I hurried to get it up today!
I hope these little tips and tricks provide you and your family with some good ideas
1)Dollar Store Fun
If you are able to take a quick trip over to your Dollar Store, do it now! Or did you know you can even order online from the Dollar store for delivery??
Pick up all of the cute little paint by numbers, foam crafts, easter decorating things.
It's more than likely Easter is going to be spent at home, so you have plenty of time to get all of those decorations done! Easy things to do as well as very budget friendly.
2)Book Series
If you have older kids, have them pick a book series they would like to start. Amazon has a lot of great ones to pick from! If they aren't fans of reading, you can also set them up to do audio book series.
Keep it fun! If they don't enjoy reading, set a small time limit, say "10 minutes" daily and then they can have free time.
3) Do planned "holidays" !
Pick a theme for the day or even a couple of days. You can theme your food and activities all around the theme. Christmas cookies and christmas cards in April- why not! See who can make the coolest Christmas tank top instead of Christmas sweater! You can even get super creative and design ornaments to have ahead for the upcoming holiday!
3) Make an indoor garden
This has been something I've personally been wanting to do for the longest! There are a lot of starter kits, like this one on Amazon
Put your kids on rotation of being "in charge" of feeding/watering the plants.
4)Engage them in planning the family's meals, and also cooking!
You're going to be doing a lot of home cooking, so why not as for the kiddos input on what to make for dinners! They will be more likely to eat when they are part of selecting the meal. Also, this is a good time to have them help learn the basics of cooking. Put them in charge of setting the table for dinner, making the side salads, and things like that to keep them feeling accomplished.
5) Establish a daily exercise routine
Schedule in daily time to be active! Daily movement is important, and even more so when there's a feeling of stress in the air. Let the kids pick. One day it can be "how many jumping jacks can you do in ___ minutes?" Another day plan a nature walk. You can create a map based around what is in your area. What birds are native to your area? Trees? How many can you spot on your walk?
6) Mindful meditation & Beginner yoga
Teaching your kids to meditate probably sounds totally impossible. However, they can do it!
There are a bunch of guided meditation videos on Youtube. Getting their little minds to relax is something they need now too, when they are probably thinking of a lot of uncertainty in their own little worlds.
Beginner yoga can be super simple to start as well. Stretching and focusing on simple body movement at an early age is a great way to begin establishing good core and back strength!