Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s)

These days we are spending more time than ever at home and it’s not always easy to keep the kids entertained. Normally, they’re used to spending a good portion of the day at school or doing extracurricular activities or going to the park with friends. However, now everything is done between the 4 walls of the home or the backyard for those lucky ones. We’re going to give you some tricks on how to make the day more entertaining and fun for the whole family. 

Mini Chef Contest 

Usually, we spend less time cooking than we would like to. Now, not only can we innovate new and creative recipes, but we can introduce our children to the world of cooking. This doesn’t mean showing them complicated or fancy recipes, but rather easy and healthy ones. A great idea is to start little by little introducing them to simple dessert recipes. You can organize a Mini Chef’s Contest between siblings or between the parents and kids. You might ask, with what recipes? Start by trying some simple Gluten-Free Muffins with fruit, or some Chocolate and Oat Pancakes, or these  Chocolate Muffins.

To make your contest more fun, each one can wear their own Chef’s hat made out of cardboard or construction paper. And if you want them to become fond of cooking, a good prize is for the winner to pick out the recipe for the next contest or to ‘invent’ a new dish themselves. Slowly, they will familiarize themselves with how things work in the kitchen and learn about eating a healthy diet. 

Move Your Body Playing

These days, we’re all moving less than we should. Working out at home is important to help create daily routines, and to stay active and avoid putting on extra weight. With kids, the case is usually that they have a lot of built-up energy, it’s important that they have something to wear themselves out so that they can sleep well and do their homework. A great option for parents and kids is to be active through playing. If you’ve got a bigger house or even a backyard, you can sweat it out by playing some traditional games like hopscotch or even have a sack race. 

Toys can also be made in a very simple way. Do you remember how much your muscles ache after playing Twister? Well, you can make your own DIY Twister Game all you need is a large sheet with some colored construction paper glued on. And, if not, you can resort to some mini-challenges. Children will see it as a competition with you, and they will be super motivated. To adapt these challenges to them, reduce the number of repetitions: 10 squats, 10 jumps, 10 strides … And let’s see who sweats the most!

Make Something New With Something Old 

You can’t go to the stores, but who doesn’t like to wear new clothes? This is a great moment to clean out the closest and rescue those old T-Shirts we never wear. They are a great base to create original and customized clothes. Fabric paint or tie-dye can be bought online or at your local grocery store, and if not old fabrics and decorations can create new fun designs for kids. They will entertain themselves thinking about their drawing and they will learn that everything has a second life. 

One idea we love is to design a SuperHero cape. They can wear it around the house whenever they have been good, haven’t talked back, or simply because they might not be able to go outside. You can make them from old fabric lying around the house, or cutting up old towels, shirts, and so on… Using a drawstring to keep it on, your kids will have their own Lockdown SuperHero costume. 

CogniFit Games 

The great thing about doing some CogniFit exercises at home is it’s great for any activity, schoolwork, healthy foods, your values…. If you want to teach your child new information do it in a fun way by placing clues around the house. They’ll keep themselves entertained, moving from one place to the next and they will strengthen their memory. It is a good idea for homework like multiplication tables, learning the bones of the body, or words in another language …

It’s about using different rooms and furniture in the house to create a circuit of clues, where different bits of information are hidden around the house. The kids will be entertained looking for all the clues, and the parents will guide them on how to put them all together. Later, watch out because they might just want to make a CogniFit Game for you. 

Camping In The Living Room 

And finally, give them a space of their own. We all need some alone time, and to spend time on things we enjoy doing. Outside their room, children will find it fun to have a mini house inside their house. If you have a tent take the opportunity to set it up somewhere in the living room or backyard and encourage the kids to create their own space inside. If you don’t have a tent, don’t worry because your kids can make their own fort! Either from boxes lying around the house or big bed sheets or perhaps both. If you put a lamp or lights inside they’ll have a very special and warm feeling space. They’ll feel more independent, and it might just give you some peace and quiet. 

As you can see, just by looking around you can find a thousand possibilities to make games and have a fun time. Kids will learn that they don’t need amazing things to have fun, and you will all have a good some very good family time. Do you have more ideas of things to do with kids at home? Let us know in the comments below!