As the number of people infected with the Coronavirus virus increases around the world, self-isolation or quarantine (1) has become one of the main strategies used to flatten the infection curve (2). In many countries, schools and kindergartens, as well as clubs and sports activities, were closed, so that everyone raised the slogan "Stay home", which means hours and hours we spend with our children without escape, and a complete change of today's routine. In order not to turn these hours into hours of boredom or endless long struggles, we offer you a set of suggestions for activities that you can do with children to spend time indoors.
Maintain a daily routine
Many parents fall into the trap of lacking routine, the temptation to stay up late and wake up late in the absence of school. But the absence of a routine negatively affects all household members, especially children, whose routine greatly helps them feel safe.
This does not mean that you have to wake up at the usual school hours, but it is important to maintain stable sleep and waking times, and to maintain a steady or almost constant routine for the day.
Resume studies during dismissal
According to UNESCO, more than 100 countries have closed schools all over, affecting more than half of the world's students. Several other countries have closed schools in some regions, and if these countries resort to closing schools and universities nationwide, the education of hundreds of millions of additional learners will be disturbed. (3) In most countries, online studies will resume during the isolation period, whether through lessons and lectures. Virtualization or sending teachers video and audio. Make sure to set aside a daily number of hours to continue studying, but it is advised not to pressure especially on young children. It is also important to prepare a place for learning. Having a special place for study will help to resume studies from home, whether it is a dedicated office in the children's room or a small corner of the dining table.
Home education tips from Home Education expert Arwa Al Taweel
Home farming
Perhaps this is the most appropriate time to grow at home. Watching a seed that blooms with life day in and day out with roots in the soil to open up its buds is a source of hope (which we must all need now). Choose seeds smartly, if the child is young, you will need fast-growing seeds in order not to get bored while waiting. Bean and barley seeds are fast-growing seeds that will grow to a reasonable length in two weeks.
Browse family photos
Whether your old paper photo albums and talk about the changes that have occurred, shouts of old clothes and relatives that no one remembers, or pictures of children and your photos together, observing the development of the young and their early years and remembering your happy times, your travels, your trips and all the fun times you spent together.
Cooking together
If your kids are old enough to take them to the kitchen, this is an opportunity to work together. Ask them to help you with some age-appropriate tasks, whether washing or cutting vegetables and fruits, or even counting them. The kitchen can be a place for learning a variety of lessons, such as reading lessons (ask them to read the ingredients of the sauce box, or read the recipe for the cake and dictate to it) or arithmetic lessons (young people can count the fruits of tomatoes, while slightly older children can answer questions such as the sum of half a kilo plus A quarter of a kilo of flour) or science lessons (by explaining yeast reactions, for example).
looking for the treasure
One of the fun and entertaining games for kids that will help you keep them busy for a reasonable number of hours. The game is simple and relies on hiding a few things (whether a set of dolls, toys or even candy bars wrapped) in a number of parts of the house, and left children looking for them. You can give them a bunch of hints to help them come up with a solution.
Reading challenge
If your child loves to read on a daily basis it is an opportunity to read more, and if he does not like reading then here is the opportunity to start to love it. You can adjust the reading challenge in a way that is appropriate for your child.
Visit a museum or garden and home cinema
Do your children love visiting museums and national parks? Are you used to taking them on weekends to local museums and cultural centers and today they are bored? Well, what do you think of taking them every day to a new place? A large number of international museums, national parks and other attractions have published their holdings on the Internet, and have developed virtual tours that you can try, among them: the Louvre Museum, the Children's Museum Boston, and the Great Wall of China. You can also bring the atmosphere of the cinema home, choose a family movie, or an animated movie, prepare a large bowl of popcorn and sit back to watch it together.
Scientific experiments
There are a large number of scientific experiments that you can prepare easily at home and with easily available ingredients. There are a large number of online resources available. You can read some ideas here, and here.
A virtual meeting with friends
Your kids definitely miss their friends, you can coordinate with other children's parents and set up a virtual meeting for children. There are a number of applications that you can use, such as "zoom" or "face time".
Reorganization and arrangement
Although organizing and arranging is not a "fun" thing in itself, it is possible to use long daylight to perform all postponed arrangement tasks at home, you can involve children in some tasks appropriate for their age or their own (arranging Lego pieces according to their colors, arranging their clothes Getting rid of inappropriate parts, arranging the library, etc.)
Traditional games
There are many traditional games that we grow up playing and may not be known to many of our children, the children of the generation of screens, and it may be interesting and fun to learn about them, among them: playing cards (cards), table, chess, ladder and snake, monopoly as well as puzzle games, It is a fun and entertaining game, and there are large puzzle games that take a long time (100 pieces or more) and can be fun for the whole family. There are also action games. Children need movement and exercise for healthy growth of their bodies and also to empty their energy. With clubs and sports centers closed, you can help your children move by doing some daily exercises at home together (you will hit several birds with one stone, on the one hand you will enjoy together, and on the other hand you will get rid of the extra calories that we all gained during the stone period), There are many sports clips on YouTube, or you can download sports apps on the phone.
A story from space
Are your children busy in space? Perhaps it will be interesting for an astronaut to read their bedtime story. "Storytimefromspace" provides a collection of children's stories read by NASA astronauts, including stories in Arabic.
Learn new languages
Whether you want to take it seriously or for fun, learning new languages is always fun. Use applications such as "duolingo", an application based on a method based on rewards and play, all you have to do is choose the language and follow the lessons, or for fun and fun choose one word and using the translation tool from Google, learn how to say it in ten languages.
Do an interview
One of you will be the interviewer and the other will be the guest, and shoot a video of the interview in which the interviewer will ask the guest questions. The game is fun and helps the family members to know more about each other. After hosting all the members of the house, it is possible to transfer to the telephone interviews with the grandmother and other relatives.
Origami
Japanese paper folding is an entertaining art, all you need is a set of colorful leaves to create dozens of shapes. You will find many origami education videos online.
Musical instrument training
If your child is practicing an instrument, it is important that the training does not stop with isolation. You can follow the exercises using the videos available on the Internet. Make sure to train for at least an hour a day.
They took advantage of the balcony of the house
It is true that we are isolated inside the house, but this does not mean that we cannot go outside on the balcony. Take advantage of the balcony to monitor the roads, and make sure that children are exposed daily to sunlight, even through the balcony.
Re-use the soap residue
To prevent corona, we wash our hands several times a day, right? This means many pieces of small soap residue, gather and then put in the cupcake silicon mold, and put the mold in a container with boiling water until the soap melts completely. Let it cool down, and it is possible to add essential oils to it. This takes us to the idea of recycling in general, there are many things that you can recycle, such as: converting empty jars into vases, and converting the tissue roll into office stripes.
It may be a long time, the hours are endlessly extended, and certainly suddenly playing the role of school, exercises and friends is not easy, but it may be an opportunity for everyone to slow down the accelerating pace of life, spend more time with our children and enjoy their company.