Make Working From Home With Kids, Easy!

Social distancing is becoming key to decreasing the spread of the Coronavirus. It can be a daunting experience, having to be cooped up in your home, so we have put together some tips and activities to help you manage your time with your kids. It is definitely a time to keep yourself and your children busy to avoid panic and fear, especially amongst children. 

Firstly, if you having to work from home with your kids, be honest with your employer and how much you will be able to get done while being at home. Bear in mind that you may need to put in a few extra hours over the weekend or in the evenings to catch up on work that you may have missed while meeting your children busy. With that being said, create a routine for each day and plan the hours you will have to focus on work and the time you will have to entertain your children and spend some quality time with them. Once your schedule is set and ready to act, we can go on over to the activities you can put together for your children. 

Activities your kids can do while you’re working:

• Scavenger Hunt: using building blocks or puzzle pieces, scatters these items around your home and in your garden, in easy to reach places for your children to find. Once they have found all the pieces they will then spend some time to put all the pieces together.
• A New Skill to Learn: Take half an hour to an hour to teach your children a new skill, such as knitting or crocheting. Once they’ve mastered the skills, give them a task of making their own quilt or blanket.
• Craft Bin: Put together a craft bin filled with crayons, glitters, paper, fabrics, cotton balls etc., and let your children’s creativity run loose. If you have old plain t-shirts lying around, hand it over to your children and let them create their own designs using stuff from their craft bins. 
• Educational Games: Many parents want to avoid screen time as much as possible, however, online educational games are a good way to keep your children busy while you getting some work done. One such platform is PBS Kids, with a variety of educational games for children to play. Dstv Now has also made 13 streaming channel available for all South Africans, with one of the channels being PBS Kids, which is a kid-friendly and educational channel.

Activities you and your kids can do together:

• Prepare Meals Together: Involve your children in prepping your meals. Children love to help, especially if it’s an interactive activity that the whole family can get involved in.
• Play Dough: You can either purchase some or make your own by using I Heart Naptime’s easy to follow recipe. This is a fun activity to do and the end result can help with your child’s sensory and motor skills, as they can create their own shapes and figures. 
• Board Games and Cards: Teach your children how to play easy to understand board games, that you may have lying around the house, and card games that are interactive, such as Go-Fish and Snap. We Have Kids have listed 15 card games with instructions that you can teach your children. 
• Worksheets: Each day you can get 2 or 3 worksheets that you can get online based on your children’s level of learning and work through them together. This is a great way of making learning fun and simple. Kid Zone has ready to use worksheets available for every child. 

We don’t know how long we will need to incorporate social distancing into our daily lives, so make the most of it by spending quality time with your children and getting the opportunity to teach them new things.