COVID Quarantine | Ways to Stay Busy with Kids

I have slowly been compiling my list of tools that are out there for us parents to keep our kids busy during this quarantine! I have shared a lot of them on my instagram page and have been trying to save them to my “fight boredom” highlight, but I wanted a place here that I could have everything together. I hope this is helpful!

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ACTIVITIES

Osmo

Play Osmo is a fun learning activity that you can use at home with an iPad or an Amazon Fire.  They have many different activities for kids from ages 3 to 12 to learn.  The Little Genius kit is great for ages 3 to 5 while the Genius Starter Kit and Explore are great for ages 5 to 12.

Brody was familiar with the Osmo from his classroom and my Mom gave him and Madelyn one for Christmas.  They have loved them.  It has been great for him to work on his spelling and math and makes learning fun.  They also have fun games like Mickey’s Super Studio.  He gets a chance to draw characters that come to life on the screen!

Mo Williams Lunch Time Doodles

Mo is an Author and Illustrator that started his career as a writer and animator on Sesame Street and has now written kids books like Elephant & Piggie.  He has started daily doodle videos for kids to learn to draw that are about 25-3 min each that are really cute.  You can also find all episodes on You Tube.

Cosmic Kids Yoga

This is a really cute activity for the kids.  They can follow the instructions for learning an interactive yoga class.  This Frozen version is really cute and popular too.

Go Noodle

Go Noodle is free and offers fun and movement for kids!  Brody was familiar with this from school and loves some of the music and dances that you can find on Go Noodle.  It is something fun that you can put on the TV or computer and let your kids release some energy with!

Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari

Join the zoo for a Home Safari Facebook Live each day at 3pm EDT where they highlight one of their amazing animals and include an activity you can do from home.

Don’t have access to social media? No worries! All videos will be posted to their YouTube channel shortly after the Facebook Live ends.

Etiquette with Miss Amy

I was approached by this company on instagram to see if I would be interested in trying out their online course with Madelyn while we are at home.  I thought this was such a cute and fun idea.  We are going to try this this week.  Madelyn may be a little on the young side for this, but I am hoping it will keep her attention.  It is broken down into short little 5min courses which is great. If you are interested, they are offering 20% off their online course right now with code MOMSHELPINGMOMS2020.

A few basic ideas for around the house too:

Bike Rides
Fort Building
Easter Egg Hunts- one of my readers sent a really cute idea using words or Letters on the eggs to make it educational.
Puzzles
Games
Painting
Cooking with Kids
Just being outside has been the best for us so far!

FREE PRINTABLES

TBBC Coloring Pages

This is an adorable collection of #ttbcboredombusters to do with the kids.  There is coloring pages, games, and cute note cards to send to friends and grandparents.

Sally King Benedict Coloring Pages

If you are not familiar with Sally’s artwork, you need to check it out.  She sketched several adorable free coloring pages for adults and kids to color! I have already done two myself and I love them.

Dorothy Shain Artist Pages

This is a new to me artist, but I love her free coloring pages too!

Dixie Designs Free Printables

Dixie Designs is one of my favorite paper companies!  They have been putting out new blog posts each day with different activities to do with the kids.   Anything from coloring pages and games to the cutest notes to send or deliver to your neighbor.

Eden Flora Easter Coloring Pages

You can find three Easter coloring pages here that are really sweet and great for the kids (or adults).

Minnow Swim Coloring Pages

If you have been around long, you know my love for the swim brand, Minnow.  They have released a packet of free coloring pages for kids and adults to print.

LillyPulitzer

New coloring pages from Lilly too!

Pete the Cat Coloring Pages & Address to Send Mail

We love Pete the Cat around here and we recently saw that the author, James Dean, offered up his mailing address for kids to send him mail and he sends mail back!! I thought it would be cute for the kids to color a picture for him and send it to the address below:

EDUCATION

Free Worksheets/Packets for Kids

This website has opened up their website and worksheets to parents that are now required to home school.  All you have to do is sign up and make a log-in and you can have access to weekly packets of worksheets for grades PreK-12.

Teachers Pay Teachers

This website is new to me, but it is packets of worksheets and activities made my teachers.  So they do charge a pretty small fee to have access to download the packets, but you can search by grade levels and find a variety of worksheets for your kids.

This was a schedule from Brody’s Kindergarten teacher that I made in Canva to give us some guidance and structure at home! It certainly doesn’t have to be followed exactly, but it has been nice to have a loose plan for the day.

COOKING

I know a lot of you are looking for easy ideas for dinner right now at home.  You can find all of my recipes here and a list of some of our 5 favorite week night meals here.

I also wanted to share two of my favorites to grab recipes from that just put out a list of great recipes:

Natalie’s 10 Easy Make Ahead Freezer Meals

Christina’s 20 Quarantine Meals

I hope this is helpful for everyone!  I would love for you to share in the comments some of the things that have been keeping your family busy during this time!!  It has been so fun to connect with you guys while we are all in this together!