6 Ways To Keep Your Kids Entertained While Working From Home

Do you need help coming up with some ideas of how to keep your kids entertained throughout the day? Whether or not your kids are in school learning, or at home doing school work, during the week, or weekends, it always seems the same. Kids need a lot to keep them entertained and busy. Now I am not meaning they need a lot of fancy toys, or computers and games. I know I did not have those growing up, and I stayed very busy. What kids sometimes need, is a little bit of direction of what to play. 

Depending on the activity, I try to give my girls an idea of what they can do, and let their imagination and independent play do its thing. Sometimes, obviously I will play with them too, or we play board games or things that we all help each other with. But while they are home right now, I am home also, trying to work, so independent play is very important. 

Even messy activities, I try my best to let it be independent. I know as a mom, it is really easy to not give in and let them do messy things because we all know who is going to be cleaning up the mess. I find the messy ones are usually the ones that keep them busy the longest. That also means, that gives me a little more time to work, clean, meal prep, or hide and enjoy a coffee!!!

Here is a list of activities you can have your kids (younger) do. With some of these, it maybe easiest if you have everything they may need out and available and within kids reach to limit the amount that they will need your help. 

1- Painting Rocks - Bonus if they need to collect the rocks. Depending on your kids age, have them go to the yard, or park with a bucket and have them fill the bucket with rocks. Bring it home, and have paints out and ready for them to paint them all. You can have them paint anything they want, or have a theme for them. Maybe it is animals, or shapes, or colours. This can be done inside or outside.

2 - Plant seeds - It maybe a bit early or late in the season, depending on when you are reading this, but grab some seeds, or already started plants, dirt and pots. Either have your kids inside with some newspaper on the floor to help contain the mess or have them outside, and just let them have fun planting, or replanting. You could also have them paint some flower pots. You can either use these flower pots, or save them for grandparent gifts that any grandparent would love.

3 - Make a scavenger hunt. Depending on age and weather, this could be done inside or outside. The older the kids you can also make this harder. Make a list of anything (between 10-20 items) and have them find them and bring it back. What you could also do if something is not able to be brought back, have them draw a picture of the item.

4 - If your kids complain that they cannot draw for the scavenger hunt, or love drawing, make sure you check out Art for Kids Hub. This is a site that has how to videos to draw almost anything you can think of. It is really truly amazing. It can keep your kids entertained for hours. You can choose what to draw, and once it is finished they can colour it. I can tell you that my kids (6 and 4) LOVE this!

5 - Let your kids make the menu for the day (or a meal or snack). My oldest did this for me on Mother’s Day, but the day before Mother’s Day she started planning it. She spent so much time (independent time) looking around the kitchen to see what we had, and what she could make. She made a menu all by herself and instead of writing out the options, she drew the pictures of it.

 
6- Make an obstacle course outside. This one may need a little bit of supervision, but hopefully it still will give you a little bit of down time. Have your kids make an obstacle course in the back yard. 

Hopefully you will be able to use some of these ideas, as either something to keep the kids busy, or even something you all can do.