Does COVID-19 have you stuck at home? Here in Virginia Beach, our schools have been shutdown for the remainder of the school. If you’re like me, as I had to let it sink in that I just became a homeschooling mama. As my daughter brought home her Chromebook and piles of papers to work on, I knew that this cannot be our entire life for the remainder of the year. But what do you do when all of a sudden the plans you had can no longer take place? All those weekend family activities and mini vacations that were planned are now postponed for an undetermined amount of time.
So to make light of the situation, I had to come up with activities that we could do together as a family to make things a little more enjoyable. I know sometimes things can get boring. You can only watch so many movies and only play so many games of monopoly.
Here are some fun and innovative ideas you can do at home together as a family:
Indoor camping
Indoor camping is another fun activity for families. It is easy to set up, and everything you need is usually already available in the house. You can turn the living room into a camp out space, set up a tent if you have one, turn off the lights, and use a flashlight to take turns telling scary stories or singing songs.
Scavenger Hunt or Treasure hunt
A treasure hunt is another way of having fun as a family. To make it enjoyable, have one person set up the hunting clues and divide the rest of the family into groups. The hunting clues should cater to all different age groups of the family so everyone can actively participate. Or if your little ones are too little for clues, set up a scavenger hunt to have them find random objects around the house! Amazon also has several treasure hunt games and scavenger hunt games you can buy. Try this fun Treasure Hunt game your kids can play indoors or outdoors!
Master Chef
Depending on the resources you have in the house, another very fun activity you can engage in is a cook-off. Just like the TV show Chopped, divide into teams and compete in creating an entirely new dish using a chosen set of ingredients. To make it more interesting, write down the different ingredients on a spin wheel and take turns to spin the wheel to select the ingredients. Use only the selected ingredients for the cook-off! We love to bake in this house so another idea is to start your own version of Cupcake Wars!
Family Project
Starting a family project is an excellent idea if you are going to spend a considerable number of days at home together as a family. The choice of a project depends on your family’s interest, but they can range from redecorating the house to setting up a family garden.
Indoor Olympics
Organize your own indoor Olympics as an entertainment. Create ten competitions that you can do indoors. The activities have to vary in nature and difficulty so that everyone can enjoy and participate. Ideas for activities include eating competition – see who can eat the most (insert food item), a game of table tennis (aka beer pong for the adults), set up a game of mini golf – don’t have golf clubs? Be creative and use a bat, wooden spoon, or whatever you can improvise as a golf club, or even have a marathon to see who can clean up a room the fastest!
Turn your home into an Art Gallery
Get the inner artist out of every family member by organizing a home art festival. Everyone must participate and use his creativity to express their artistic side by painting, drawing, or making collage with old magazines. At the end, stick all the masterpieces on the walls to create your own family art gallery! Or create a family art piece together. Have one family member start the painting, then the next family member adds to that painting. Each person in the family takes turns adding on to the painting.
Nailed It!
There is a baking show on Netflix called Nailed It. Each competitor tries to recreate a food masterpiece. Host a little competition to see who can recreate the best masterpiece. Find a project on Pinterest and see if you can “nail” that project!
Revamp you family photo album
Remove the “digital” dust from your old photos kept on your computer and start a fresh family photo album or scrapbook. This can be a fun activity to do with the family as each family member reminisces the good times. If you choose to make a scrapbook, have each family member create a page or two in the scrapbook. Revamping your digital photos will also be a good opportunity to clean up those duplicates and irrelevant pictures, freeing up valuable space on your computer or cloud storage.
Origami
Origami is an ancient Japanese art that involves folding paper to make different kinds of shapes like animals, plants, etc. It is an engaging form of art that anyone can learn. To learn origami, all you need is some white or colored paper, color pencils, scissors and glue. Start with a kangaroo, a nun or a rocket and advance to a dragonfly, a dinosaur, a winged Pegasus, or a cicada. Depending on how competitive your family members are, you can set up an Origami contest to see who can master the most shapes! You can easily follow tutorials on YouTube together as a family or order an Origami book from Amazon!
Make short movies
Depending on how many you have in your family, you could write and create short video clips using a phone or a camcorder if you have one. The idea is to have everyone participate in the whole movie-making process, including writing the script, picking the wardrobe, and acting it out. Keep the dialogue short so that you do not have to memorize a lot of words. Sophie wants to become a YouTuber so you could even come up with creative things to make a YouTube video or TikTok.
What activities have you been doing with your family during this quarantine period? Which activity from the list do you want to try with your family?
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