5 Ways to Keep Your Kids Busy While Social Distancing

With COVID-19 cases going up and down and no end in sight when it comes to social distancing, it's important to keep your children connected with friends and family while still keeping them protected from catching the virus. This is a balancing act, especially when It comes to day-to-day activities.

 5 Ways to Keep Your Kids Busy While Social Distancing

You obviously don't want your child watching TV day-in and day-out, and a lot of lists only contain short-term, one-day activities. Here are five ways to keep your child busy for longer than a few hours during quarantine.

Five Ways to Keep Your Child Busy While Social Distancing

1. Boredom sticks. Before doing anything else on this list, you should make boredom sticks. Boredom sticks are sticks at you write quick and fun activities on, so whenever your child says that they're bored, they can pull a stick and have something to do. You can put things like puzzling, coloring, and planning the dinner menu on the list to give your child a variety of different things to draw from.
2. Journaling. Journaling is a great quarantine task because it should be done every single day, and it allows your child the opportunity to express their feelings about what's going on. Even though children may not understand all the ins and outs of what’s going on, they still have feelings that need to be addressed, and journaling is the perfect way to allow them to do that.
3. 30-day LEGO challenge. If your child loves playing with LEGOs, then you should look into the 30-day LEGO challenge. The 30-day LEGO challenge is a challenge that gives you a prompt of something to build with LEGOs every day of the month. The best part is there are so many different LEGO challenges that your child will never get bored.
4. Start a garden. If you're looking for a way to engage your child in learning while also keeping them busy, then starting a garden is a great way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Gardening is fun for all ages and it will give your child something to look forward to every single day. Gardens can be planted spring summer and fall outdoors, and many plants, herbs and flowers, can be started indoors as well.
5. Nursing-home Pen pals. If you're looking for ways to teach your child compassion and understanding, then have them write letters to a person in a nursing home. There are many programs that support this, and if you can’t find one, you can always call your local nursing home and set something up with them. This task is a way for them to give back to the community and brighten someone’s day at the same time. Additionally, they can also write letters to other children in hospital settings and their friends.

Thinking up new tasks for your child during quarantine is a grand undertaking, especially when you have your own work to do as well. The best types of quarantine tasks are ones that can be done regularly, so your child can form routines and can avoid falling into the trap of boredom.